Movies and series about the atrocities of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) are not very common. When it comes to totalitarianism from the twentieth century, there are a bunch of productions about the Nazis, their holocaust, and all the tragedy, destruction, and genocide caused by those evil people.
However, when it comes to the totalitarianism that sowed terror in half of Europe for around 50 years, the number of productions is mostly nonexistent. Everyone knows about the holocaust, the systematic extermination of Jews by the Nazis, but the same cannot be said about the holodomor, the systematic extermination of mostly Ukrainians by the Soviet government through state induced food scarcity.
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The movie follows a Welsh journalist called Gareth Jones who was quite popular because he was able to fly with Hitler on the same plane. His next project was trying to interview Stalin and he had serious doubts about the supposed economic boom in the Soviet Union of that time because according to him, the numbers didn't match. He believed there was something the Soviets weren't telling.
Once he arrives in Moscow, he begins to use his networking skills to try and figure out what's really happening in this place. Throughout the entire film, we can see how everything is always under the surveillance of government spies. Collecting bits and pieces of information here and there, he decides to go to Ukraine accompanied by a high ranking Soviet worker.
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Since going to the location he wants to visit is not possible for him, he needs to get away from the Soviet worker and then board a local train that was full of starving people. Once he arrives at his planned location, he quickly finds a dead man laying on the ground. After taking another run to find some safety he begins to walk around this little village and everything he sees is horrible. Starving kids, dead people, and even cannibalism. These people were being systematically deprived of food, and they were kept captive in this place because there weren't allowed to move to another city.
This forbidden exploration brings him serious problems but eventually, he is able to return to the West and inform the world about this tragic atrocity. This movie shows how deep the Soviet's tentacles can be. There are also several references to a very popular book by George Orwell called Animal Farm, which is, in my opinion, a must-read book.
If these historic topics about totalitarians governments are of interest to you, then you should definitely watch this movie. If you know of any other production about Soviet atrocities besides the HBO series called Chernobyl then feel free to mention them below in the comments.
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The best
- Great movie about one of the biggest atrocities from the USSR.
The worst
- Given the magnitude of this tragedy, I was expecting an even more impactful film.
More information: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6828390/ Review: AAA In numbers: 8/10