Two Prosecutors
In Two Prosecutors (Два прокурори), Sergei Loznitsa transforms the mundane mechanics of doors – wooden, steel, barred, bolted – into a subtle yet suffocating metaphor for a state apparatus designed to exclude, delay and deceive. Set at the height of Stalin’s terror in 1937, the film follows idealistic young prosecutor Alexander Kornev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov) on his grim journey from a regional office to the bureaucratic core of Moscow – a path not so much walked as endured.
The architecture of obstruction begins in the very first frame, outside the prison in Bryansk. Steel doors slam shut with brutal precision, their locks and keys managed with cold efficiency. Wooden doors creak open only when the plot permits, while barred cell doors allow fleeting, spectral glimpses inside. Loznitsa lingers on one striking sequence in which Kornev passes through six or seven doors to reach the political prisoner Stepniak (Aleksandr Filippenko). The camera remains fixed behind a barred interior door, through which we watch officers behind yet another steel door, and beyond that, Kornev in the cell with Stepniak – a nesting-doll view of confinement. At one point, Kornev faces a wall of prison guards, shoulder to shoulder, blocking his passage. They don’t move until the warden gives a small, reluctant nod. Here, the barrier isn’t made of steel – but it’s no less impenetrable without top-down sanction. It’s a harrowing study in containment, where access is always partial, and authority is always mediated.
Loznitsa draws particular attention to the peephole – pointedly referred to by Stepniak as the “Judas hole”. He gives this small, circular aperture a theatrical weight that even a room full of modern security cameras couldn’t replicate. In one subtly darkly comic shot, the prison warden must stoop awkwardly, half-bending at the waist, to peer through it – a brief, humiliating contortion that hints at the absurdity embedded in power.
The narrative, meanwhile, follows a surreal, increasingly absurd trajectory. Kornev’s attempt to meet the General Prosecutor is delayed by bizarre diversions and strange characters, including a jovial, well-dressed official claiming to be an old classmate he doesn’t recall. His journey to Moscow begins to resemble Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole, as the system’s logic twists and folds in on itself, culminating in an unexpected twist that feels like something straight out of a Soviet political joke.
The result is a procedural thriller in which every door is a trap, every opening a test. Loznitsa doesn’t just depict tyranny – he maps its architecture, lock by lock.
Christina Yang
Two Prosecutors does not have a release date yet.
Read more reviews from our Cannes Film Festival coverage here.
For further information about the event visit the Cannes Film Festival website here.
Watch the trailer for Two Prosecutors here:
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