A young man calmly took six bullets out of a revolver
pointing the gun at his temple and pull the trigger.
The gun didn't go off, at least not this time.
The young man spoke fluent French.

A fire-ball seared through a beautiful Russian
landscape of forest and lakes.
 
In all appearance, "Comrade Kotov" seems to be
quite a nice guy.  Yet like so many typical
communist revolutionaries, the life of Kotov is
a contradiction.  He spent his life fighting against
a bourgeois society, now he is retired and married to a
bourgeois wife (Maroussia) and lives the life style
of a typical bourgeois complete with servants.  One of
the greatest ironies in the film is when his daughter
asked what "middle-class" meant, and the answer
was "It is something bad" and all this conversation
occurred in a quintessentially middle-class summer resort.
But he still sees himself as the hero of the revolution
and protector of the people.

Then one day, Maroussia's childhood lover Dimitri comes
back and the viewers are instantly intrigued.  Yet no
one in the movie seems to want to hear his story.  So finally,
in one of the most beautiful cinematic moments, he tells
a sad love story to Kotov's lovely six year old daughter
Nadia complete with puppies and songs while both Kotov
and Maroussia listen intensely in the background.
Meanwhile the fire-ball hovers nearby, explodes and
sets a tall tree on fire.  It soon becomes clear that
ten years ago, Kotov used his power to force Dimitri
into the secret police and then sent him into exile,
so he himself could court Maroussia.  Of course, when
confronted by Maroussia, Kotov protests his innocence,
"I sent him away because he spoke French".  He then
goes on to call Dimitri a coward.  But now, Kotov is
retired and Dimitri is still with the secret police
and one wonders why he is here...
 
One finds it very difficult to sympathize with
either of the two male characters.  Dimitri is
corrupt and vicious.  However I did find myself
feeling somewhat sorry for him.  He lost everything and
was forced to serve perhaps the most morbid secret agency
(thanks to Kotov).  Even Kotov couldn't stand the NKVD
and only stayed with them for a short time.  Unfortunately,
Dimitri didn't have that choice.  With all the horror going
on on daily basis, one had to either become numb or
corrupt just to survive and I suspect Dimitri did both.
At one point, he was about to let an innocent bystander
(who witnessed something he wasn't supposed to) go, but then
realized that he couldn't...  Over the horizon was a
balloon holding a giant portrait of Stalin--Big Brother was
always watching.  He wasn't completely corrupt because
from time to time, his conscience did bother him.
 
Kotov too is arrogant, ruthless and corrupt
on a grand scale.  Unlike Dimitri, he lived a full life
with a beautiful wife and daughter.  He did all this to
Dimitri and then accused Dimitri for being corrupt.
Only toward the end did he begin to see the monster 
state he had helped to create and began to cry.
He was probably still too self-absorbed to realize that
Dimitri (whose life has been completely destroyed) who
sat next to him whistling and gloating had a far greater
wound.
 
Eventually, the fire-ball comes to everyone of course...
 
Three stars.

Eugene Xia