Captain Volkonogov Escaped

2021 [RUSSIAN]

Drama / Thriller

3
Rotten Tomatoes Critics - Certified Fresh 100% · 12 reviews
Rotten Tomatoes Audience - Upright 100%
IMDb Rating 7.3/10 10 2519 2.5K

Plot summary

Captain Fedor Volkonogov works in law enforcement. He is on the good books of the management, and his colleagues respect him. But one day, his life abruptly changes: he is declared a criminal. The Captain manages to run away before he is arrested. Suddenly he turns into an outcast, whom his former colleagues search across the whole city. At night Volkonogov is visited by a messenger from the other world, who warns him that after death he will go hell and be tormented forever. But he has an opportunity to change his fate and get to paradise if he repents, and at least one person forgives him. The Captain embarks on his way to find forgiveness. But he cannot even fathom what tests are awaiting him on this way.


Uploaded by: FREEMAN
August 16, 2023 at 05:57 PM

Director

Top cast

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1.13 GB
1280*536
Russian 2.0
NR
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24 fps
2 hr 6 min
Seeds 8
2.33 GB
1920*804
Russian 5.1
NR
Subtitles us  
24 fps
2 hr 6 min
Seeds 5

Movie Reviews

Reviewed by josephloudmer 10 / 10

Few words

This movie wins, in my opinion, with its outstanding acting (from another world - almost literally) and with the moral of the story.

So many emotions. It was captivating.

I dont want say anything else. But I have to because this review has to be at least 600 letters long.

So I'll add that giving a 10 to a movie is outstanding from my part. Go figure, there may always be a better film somewhere, but I won't wait for it to give 10 stars. It was the right movie at the right time. What else. It's gracefully graphic if that makes any sense.

Enjoy, this one is worth making time for, even for the busiest

.

Reviewed by csirke_paprikas 8 / 10

Multilayered movie about 1937

When the movie have finished and I left the cinema, I was fully immersed in the atmosphere of the movie. It is really beautiful and very amusing movie.

First of all, I'd like to emphasise how beautiful is the movie. It brought me back to St Petersburg and I want to walk on it's streets one more time. Even though the film didn't show the glamorous side of the city, it shoed typical architecture, weather and mood of it.

Secondly, I was quite surprised by the costumes, especially by the uniforms of the soldiers (not sure how to call them). The main character at first looked like skin-head, notoriously known to be a lot in St. Petersburgs after USSR collapse. So I felt antipathy towards the main character, simply because if my own associations.

And yet, red sport costume with black shoes and jacket looks very rich and impressive in contrast with the poor and grey city. As if only these soldiers are the most important people in this city, only them can wear new and colourful clothes.

The story takes place in Russia 1937 or 1938 - the time that became a narrative name for totalitarian and merciless political regime. Today, when the Russian news are full of cases of freedom of speech violation, political prisoners - people are asking if we are back to 1937. So when I was watching the film, I felt pain for the past and fear for the future.

I could not understand the main character Captain Volkonogov. First, he was portrait as a strong and smart person. But once he escaped, he was only strong. Did they wanted to show him frightening when he was one of the soldiers and then emotionally retarded because that what kind of people go to work for that goverment?

Reviewed by dromasca 9 / 10

empire of terror

It's been three days since I saw 'Captain Volkonogov escaped' (the Russian title is 'Kapitan Volkonogov bezhal'), the 2021 film directed by Natasha Merkulova and Aleksey Chupov, and the faces and experiences of its heroes do not leave my memory. The two Russian directors managed to re-create in this co-production of studios from Russia, Estonia and France, the nightmarish atmosphere of a dictatorial state and its apparatus of repression based on terror. The meeting between the realistic Russian school of acting and action thriller films with modern editing and fast pace has in the case of this film an original and lasting effect.

The story in the film takes place in 1938, in full Stalinist terror. Fyodor Volkonogov is a captain in the political police whose job it is to arrest enemies, extract confessions from them by any means, and then execute them. It does not matter if those arrested are guilty or innocent. If they are not guilty today, they will be tomorrow, says one of the higher rank officers. This also applies to police officers, who are in permanent danger of 're-evaluation'. When he feels that his own re-evaluation is imminent, Fyodor flees and in a matter of minutes the hunter becomes the prey. His superior - Major Golovnya - and his former colleagues are on his trail. His girlfriend betrays him. His colleague and best friend is 're-evaluated', arrested and executed. Is there any chance of escape? Maybe only after death, and that on the condition that at least one of the relatives of those who had been his victims forgives him. His flight becomes a search for absolution from sin, at least on the part of one person. It is a kind of inversion to the point of absurdity of the biblical principle according to which he who saves one man saves an entire universe. But can the crimes committed against innocent people by those who served a system based on terror be in any way forgiven?

"Captain Volkonogov escaped" alternates the parable with a religious tone with the grim reality of a system that transforms the entire society into a huge penitentiary system, based on fear, denunciations, torture. The visual part is remarkable. The filmmakers don't attempt a precise recreation of the era, but filter it through what the characters feel. We are dealing with a decrepit urban landscape (I think it is Sankt-Peterburg - then Leningrad), with ruined palaces now occupied by police headquarters, with squalid tenements where people live communally, with streets and buildings that seem in permanent decay, with people closed in on themselves looking around in fear all the time. Dark colors dominate, the only patches of color that stand out are the red uniforms of the secret police agents. Violence and mistrust dominate relationships between people, oppressors fear bosses, whistleblowers denounce in turn, anyone can become a victim at any time. Yuriy Borisov is excellent in the lead role, at the head of a remarkable cast, in which each character lives his own drama on screen. The action scenes are also excellently done, but even more impressive are the ones depicting the police school training. Young officers learn how to extract confessions with 'special methods' or how to execute convicts saving every bullet. Through its almost theatrical style of staging, 'Captain Volkonogov Escaped' is both located in a precise era and timeless enough to be a warning about the dangers of the present and the future.

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