Review: A lone crusader for justice runs into a Soviet-era brick wall in 'Two Prosecutors'

In Sergei Loznitsa’s new drama, stairwells are sinister.Hallways hum with invisible menace.

The primary colors are drab grays and ugly browns.Faces are unsmiling.

And the doors are always locked.There are many ways to portray authoritarianism, but “Two Prosecutors” is penetrating in its depiction of a society being slowly poisoned.The film might be too much to bear if it wasn’t so brilliantly conceived and executed.It is 1937 in the Soviet Union.

Filming in a constricting boxy aspect ratio, the Ukrainian director takes us inside a corroding prison filled with men unjustly incarcerated as enemies of the state.An elderly man is tasked with burning the inmates’ letters to Stalin pleading to have their appeals heard.

But one prisoner’s request doesn’t go up in smoke: a note written in blood by an aging Bolshevik professing his innocence.Soon afterward, our main character, a newly hired prosecutor named Kornev (Aleksandr Kuznetsov), arrives at the prison, the note in hand.

He plans to investigate the inmate’s claims.The rest of “Two Prosecutors” will concern the myriad forces conspiring to thwart his efforts.

Movies Few people know how to navigate a crowd quite like Sergei Loznitsa.Inspired by a novella by Soviet physicist Georgy Demidov, who chronicled his own harrowing experiences in the gulag from the late 1930s until the early 1950s, “Two Prosecutors” unfolds with ominous efficiency.

Determined to set things right, Kornev insists on seeing the prisoner, Stepniak, only to discover how difficult such a seemingly straightforward request proves to be.Talk to the supervisor, he’s first told.

After hours cooling his heels, Kornev is then informed that Stepniak is ill with an infectious disease — come back another time.But Kornev is young and infused with an idealistic zeal, refusing to let these goons stonewall him.The film’s claustrophobic framing, paired with a locked-down camera, quickly creates a clammy unease.

There is no violen...