THE RIDER NAMED DEATH
Directed & Produced by: Karen Shakhnazarov.
Written by: Aleksandr Borodyansky & Karen Shakhnazarov.
Director of Photography: Vladimir Klimov.
Edited by: Lidia Milioti.
Music by: Anatoli Kroll.
Released by: Kino.
Language: Russian & French with English subtitles.
Country of Origin: Russia. 106 min. Not Rated.
With: Andrei Panin, Rostislav Bershauer, Ksenia Rappoport & Artyem Semakin.

Despite having an evasive central character, this handsome production holds interest as it steadily parcels out clues behind the motivation of Georges (Andrei Panin), the head of a terrorist cell hell-bent on assassinating a grand duke in czarist Russia. Georges’ dapper and opaque visage rarely alters as he observes the duke’s daily movements. His relentless determination to kill the authority figure is akin to Captain Ahab and the elusive whale. For one of his comrades, working class Fyodor (Rostislav Bershauer), striking out at the ruling class is an act of revenge; his wife was killed by Cossacks during a peaceful demonstration. Self-sacrifice for your fellow man is the highest ideal for another conspirator, the wide-eye and religious Vanya (Artyem Semakin).

The film is adapted from the 1909 novel The Pale Horse, Memoirs of a Terrorist by Boris Savinkov, a member of the anti-monarchist Social Revolutionary Party, whose activities included assassinations. Although the overindulgence of the upper class and the squalid slums are both depicted, the politics of the time are only referred to; the emphasis is on the personal. Any connection between terrorism then and today is only indirectly inferred. A possible objectionable or eyebrow raising sequence occurs in the prologue, where brisk reenactments of killings and bombing are depicted as silent movies. With all of its exaggerated acting, it stands apart from the film’s tone and Georges’ demeanor - dry and detached. Set against the backdrop of the Kremlin and an opulent opera house, this is one of the rare films where you can not only see, but feel the sweat, even if in the abundant close-ups the heavy make-up on actor Panin’s face is too distractingly obvious. Kent Turner
March 16, 2005