FIRST CIRCLE
Russia/Denmark, 1973, 98 minutes, Colour.
Directed by Aleksander Ford.
First Circle is a version of Aleksander Solzhenitsyn’s novel, directed by polish director Aleksander Ford. Filmed on authentic European locations, it re-creates the Stalinist era. The First Circle refers to Dante and the inferno, the first circle of prisoners in hell who are the intellectuals imprisoned for offences against the state, but being used by the state to develop engineering and scientific projects.
The film re-creates life within the Stalinist prisons, the interactions amongst the prisoners themselves, their backgrounds and memories, the injustice done to them, their longings and needs. The plot also focuses on a young diplomat who gives a warning to professor about giving medicine to the French. The Bureaucrats trace arrest the diplomat and imprison him.
The film highlights the hopelessness of the Stalinist era as well as the resilience of human nature.
1. Exploration of human rights? Presentation of the Stalinist era and its repression? The film as an adequate version of his novel?
2. The re-creation of Europe in the 50s, the Stalinist era? The cities, way of life? The prisons, the gulags? Musical score, orchestrated, choral?
3. An exploration of soviet prisons, injustice? The reference to Dante and the first circle.
4. The retrospective view on Stalinism, the Soviet Union, its principles, socialism, communism, the role of the state, bureaucracy, espionage? Technical and technological development? Individuals, repression?
5. The picture of prisons, justice, the Politbureau authorities, the guards, getting the prisoners to spy on one another? The responsibility for this state of affairs?
6. The picture of the scientists, the engineers? As individuals, characters? group? Their background, memories? Sentences? The detail of their life in, prison, their skills, laboratories, plans, supervision? Their range of their ideologies and loyalties? Their treatment, the dormitory, talking together, drinking, books? Being interviewed and asked topsy on one another?
7. Their achievement, interaction, relationships? The importance of the relationships, love?
8. The diplomat, his social environment, the appointment to Paris, his ambitions and hopes? Conscience and the phone call? Hoping the phone was not tapped? His worry, conscience, relationship with his wife? The arrest, the humiliation, the imprisonment and torture?
9. The contrast with ordinary life, life in the Soviet cities of the 50s?
10. Developments of espionage, phones? Voice matching? The authorities and their meetings, demands and deadlines? The background of the officials?
11. The need for prisoners to be transferred to Siberia? Selection processes, injustice?
12. An indictment of the Soviet Union, the Stalinist era, communism and socialism? The state as prison?
