6.1/10
Senior Film Conservator

A definitive 6.1/10 rating for a film that redefined the boundaries of cult cinema. Comrades remains a cornerstone of transgressive art.
Honestly, you'll know within ten minutes if you're gonna stick with Comrades. If you love old-school Soviet cinema where people stand around looking stern and talking about progress, you'll eat this up. If you need pacing that doesn't feel like a slow walk through deep snow, maybe skip it. It's not flashy, but it's got a weird, heavy heart.
It’s 1935. You can almost smell the paper mill dust through the screen. Zaitsev arrives, and he's got that look of a guy who thinks he’s fixing things when he’s really just breaking them.
The core of the movie is basically: what do you do when your best war buddy turns into a jerk? It’s a classic, but watching it play out in this specific, tight-knit town setting makes it feel a bit claustrophobic. You really start to feel for the guys who just wanted to keep their heads down and do their jobs.
There's this one scene where they're sitting around, trying to rekindle that old military camaraderie, but the air is just thick with unspoken awkwardness. It’s brutal. It reminds me a bit of the tension in A Man's Land, where the past just won't stay buried no matter how hard you dig.
The whole thing eventually crumbles, like you knew it would. It’s not a happy ending, exactly, but it feels earned. It's not trying to be The Yellow Handkerchief with all that emotional payoff, but it hits hard in a very quiet way.
The final act feels like it’s rushing to get the point across, though. It’s like the writers suddenly remembered they had a runtime limit. Suddenly, everyone’s making speeches, and the nuance just flies out the window. Still, I’d take this over most modern stuff that tries to be 'deep' and just ends up being loud. 📽️

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