1. This is the first film of the Estonian SSR and a rare adaptation of the Estonian writer Jacobson.
It so happened that the Soviet Estonian cinematography began in Leningrad, and the start was given not only by Estonian actors, but also by the real heroes of the film studio “Lenfilm” – this is Rappaport himself, who at one time exchanged Hollywood for life in the Land of Soviets, cameraman Sergey Ivanov, production designer Evgeny Jenei and Leonid Trauberg, who adapted the play of the Estonian writer August Jacobson for the screen.
The anti-fascist play “Life in the Citadel” was first published in the journal “Zvezda”, won the Stalin Prize and was successfully performed in many theaters in Russia and Estonia (for example, it was staged by Tairov at the Chamber Theater in Moscow).
2. The eternal theme of personal choice: will the professor fight or will he stay in his citadel?
On the example of the family of Professor Milas “Life in the Citadel” tells about the occupation of Estonia by the Nazis, about the struggle and, finally, about the liberation of the country – on the cramped streets of the old city, locals greet Soviet tanks and shower them with flowers. But first the question for the professor is: Whose side is he on? Will he still close his eyes to everything that is happening around him?
Milas Sr. is a visual embodiment of what was then called passivity or apoliticalness, and today is called downshifting. It seems that he finally enters life only at the moment when he learns the terrible truth about his eldest son (by the way, the authors are not afraid to openly talk about collaboration and call things by their names).
3. "Anti-fascism has flooded the screen"
In his impressive book “The Red Noir of Hollywood” Mikhail Trofimenkov writes:
But since the summer of 1940, antifascism has flooded the screen. Part of the films focused on the Soviet adaptations of the Oppenheim Family by Feuchtwanger and Professor Mamlock by Friedrich Wolf. Since November 1938, Mamlock has been in 103 New York City halls and hits. Cinema about Nazi anti-Semitism has not yet seen not only the States: and on a global scale, it was Roshal and Rappaport who opened the topic.
Rappaport and Minkin's film "Professor Mamlock" was released in 1938 and, for example, in England, his fate was decided personally by Churchill (see the memoirs of G. Rappaport in the journal "Cinematic Notes" N72 for 2005).
Both Jacobson (Life in the Citadel) and Friedrich Wolf (Mamlock), the father of film director Konrad Wolf, are communists. And both put in the center of the story a professor who refuses to notice anything around him. And both film adaptations are equally important and significant, each for its time - "Mamlock" marked the beginning of the anti-fascist struggle in Europe, when the war was just beginning, and the film "Life in the Citadel" tried to comprehend the consequences.
4. Ecology and Life
Professor Milas is concerned about the problem of draining swamps. He studies flora, soil, understands the importance of his task. And the house where he lives with his family, among forests and swamps, in its atmosphere resembles the house from Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho: the same fog and suspense, especially when the psychopath Norman Bates drowns the car in a picturesque swamp near the porch.
Very well filmed national holiday, whether on the occasion of the Victory, or just from a good mood: everyone sings, dances, dances and rejoices in spring. “Life in the Citadel” gradually pulls the professor out of his citadel-swamp house to real life, to people, to the streets, to public spaces, to the open air.
Thus, the film makes an artistic and spiritual leap from the claustrophobia of the working office, reminiscent of deeply psychological and near-criminal stories from expressionist cinema (remember, Rappaport at the beginning of his creative career worked in Berlin as an assistant to his compatriot-Austrian Georg Wilhelm Pabst, one of the most significant expressionist directors), to the openness and vitality of socialist realism - a style in which Rappaport will shoot his best and favorite films "Alexander Popov", "Dayer" and other tickets.