"... and torment the conscience of the one who has it." The title contains an incomplete quote from the famous “military” song about the pilot Vladimir Semyonovich Vysotsky, our truly national bard, who is now considered the “conscience of our culture” of that era. And this phrase fits the main content of our serial feature film (the most correct and historical definition of it) with series of one and a half hours (not that the current 50 minutes is already cool!). I decided to build a brief review on it thesis-conspectively: so short and, in my opinion, better.
... " Conscience is one of the bright, successful works of the Creative Association "Ekran", created in the late 60s in the structure of the Soviet TsT to fill the air of the rapidly developing television with feature films, documentaries, and later cartoons. The co-author of the script and the director of the film was Yuri Kavtaradze (Yulian Semenov is not present here from any side!). I watched it as a child, in the year of the release on the blue screens, and already from the first time I remember well (especially interesting details like the taxi definition of the client “coat” (?) or jokes “knitwear, four-coats ...”; of course, the child’s perception is more details than emotions, thoughts).
... The film was originally supposed to be black and white, since color television broadcasts, with a grandiose lag behind the West, were just getting to their feet, and color TVs (mostly bought "for a bump") were considered luxury items. However, I absolutely do not imagine “Conscience” in color, even if it is ever painted as “Seventeen Moments of Spring” (by the way, the colors of the subjects during the shooting of “C/B” were still real: for example, in the same “Moments...”, judging by the shooting photos, SS armbands were, as expected, red!) .
... I may be an inattentive viewer, but I haven’t seen Conscience on television for decades, as I have recently. For some reason, it is not “liked” by the gentlemen of television (or is it all about the length of the series – an inconvenient “format”?). In any case, the mass audience either forgot it, or does not know it at all. I'm sorry.
... The word-concept “conscience” is clearly and carefully emphasized, intoned in the picture many times, in relation to various psychological situations, and even in Armenian. It turns out that we are not talking about the unclean conscience of specific ex-concentration camp prisoners, but about the human Conscience in general (in my deep conviction as a believer in God (Higher Reason), but not a religious person, conscience is a particle of God in your soul (although He is omnipresent!), and if it disturbs you, torments you, harasses you, then you did wrong, contrary to Him, and the only “medication” is to do as she (He!) tells you, even though it is extremely difficult, and only then you will experience unprecedented relief and have many times, you will surely have such experience. Another thing is that somewhere after the middle of the film, the reception begins to “off the scale” and turns into an obsessive idea-fix. So the sense of proportion of the creators of “Conscience” here clearly failed.
... We all love and deeply respect veterans of the Great Patriotic War (", Thank you Grandpa for the Victory, etc.). But in the film Conscience, it is truly shown that not all of our veterans are so glossy-perfect! Some of them, it turns out, have their own “skeletons in the closet”, not even skeletons, but a fully alive and prosperous SS traitor-degenerate (remember how many pseudo-veterans like Drosov were exposed and brought to justice by our “organs”; this still happens!). So, I think this film will never be shown for another Victory Day - "intolerant", not "military glamour".
... If we compare (and me, and not only me, I think it is necessary) “Conscience” with the much later serial feature film “Confrontation” (according to Julian Semyonov), also devoted to the investigation of the dirty “activity” of the former fascist henchman Krotov in our days, it should be noted: despite the similarity of the topic, its artistic decisions differ somewhat. In Conscience there is more, as it were, “bushiness” in the investigation of the case (other criminal “branches” are revealed, in which the investigation almost got confused if it did not pay attention to the “military” component of the case in time and correctly appealed for help to the KGB), and in Confrontation (I first listened to the novel in a radio play, and only then saw it on TV), despite (partially) such “bushness” the main “barrel” is soon indicated. Note: in the “Confrontation” a lot of space and time is given to the “becoming” of the traitor Krotov, and in the “Conscience” about Drosov himself is said as if glimpses, fragmentary, which does not give a complete idea of his personality and why he became so (almost his “deeds” in the concentration camp are not shown; we believe the heroes of the film, concentration camps, as they say, on the word, on rare shots; so it turns out that Drosov looks more like a villain of modernity than of the past). All this is a very big omission of the creators of Conscience. Of course, before them, as mentioned above, there were several other artistic tasks than their colleagues. Still, and still...
... Actually, that's all. And the rest, I hope, will be written by other reviewers of the film. There is a lot to write about...
8 out of 10