Facing the Judgement of History has few parallels in the history of film.
An odd combination of documentary dialogue and fiction, real historical events and their interpretations, it is a debate about the October Revolution and emigration between one of the fathers of Soviet cinema Fridrikh Ermler and ideologist of the White movement and monarchist Vasily Shulgin.
Fridrikh Ermler (1989–1967) was one of the key Soviet filmmakers of the first half of the twentieth century. He came to film during the heyday of the avantgarde in the mid-1920s; in 1937, as a «court artist, ” he made the infamous film The Great Citizen in support of the Great Terror, and by the early 1950s had become a relic of the Stalinist cinema. Facing the Judgement of History was his last work.
The narrative revolves around the real historical figure of Vasily Shulgin, an important politician who persuaded Nicholas II to abdicate the throne in the early days of the February Revolution. Shulgin, who had returned to Leningrad (once Petrograd) almost half a century after his emigration with an official invitation from the Soviet authorities, plays himself. Originally, Ermler was going to be Shulgin’s opponent on the screen, but in the end an imaginary Historian took his place. Due to the difference in the opponents’ statuses, the film became a mix of premeditation, fantasy, and improvisation. An equally fascinating combination of dense historical reality and fiction can be found in Thomas Harlan’s Wundkanal (1984) and Kadzuo Hara’s The Emperor’s Naked Army Marches On (1987), both shot later.
Facing the Judgement of History is a dialogue about emigration, revolution, and the events of the late 1910s and early 1920s which is often interrupted: the film’s director and screenwriter offer their comments on the direct and quasi documentary speech through Historian’s notes. However, Shulgin (both as the actor and the character) unwittingly becomes the figure that debunks not only Soviet ideology but also Ermler’s cinematic apparatus, thus bringing the director himself before the judgement of history. What was conceived as a biopic becomes an essay film filled with self-references and reflection.
Facing the Judgement of History
Director: Fridrikh Ermler
USSR, 1965. 99 min.
12+