100 Days Before the Command (Russian: Сто дней до приказа, translit. Sto dney do prikaza) is a 1990 Soviet drama film directed by Hussein Erkenov, based on the novel of the same name by Yuri Polyakov.
Background
The film was produced by the Gorky Film Studio in the Soviet Union. To secure funding, the director and screenwriters (Yuri Polyakov and Vladimir Kholodov) submitted two decoy scripts to the studio alongside the real one. Upon completion, the film was censored by Soviet authorities and banned from export. It was not screened internationally until the Berlin International Film Festival in 1994.
Plot Synopsis
The film follows five young Red Army recruits undergoing basic training at a military camp in Central Russia. It has no conventional narrative structure; instead, it presents a series of vignettes with minimal dialogue depicting the harsh conditions, humiliations, and cruelties inflicted on conscripts by their superiors. Incidents include a senior officer urinating on a sleeping soldier, and hot soup being dumped on a recruit in the mess hall. The film also explores homoerotic undertones.
Cast
- Vladimir Zamansky as The Unknown Man
- Armen Dzhigarkhanyan as Brigade Commander
- Oleg Vasilkov as Elin
- Roman Grekov as Zub
- Valeriy Troshin as Kudrin
- Aleksandr Chislov as Zyrin
- Mikhail Solomatin as Belikov
- Sergey Romantsov as Titarenko
- Elena Kondulainen as Death
Production Details
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director | Hussein Erkenov |
| Writers | Vladimir Kholodov, Yuri Polyakov |
| Cinematography | Vladislav Menshikov |
| Running time | 67 minutes |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Language | Russian |
| Release | 1990 |
Critical Reception
Louis Menashe of Cinéaste wrote that the film conveys the "legendary" harshness of Soviet training through a "moody, elliptical, and often incomprehensibly enigmatic style," describing it as "uneven; by turns haunting and edgy, and irritatingly obtuse, but powerful overall." Julian Graffy of Sight and Sound found its poetry to have "a terrible bleakness." Derek Malcom of The Guardian noted that while "clearly anti-military," the film is more concerned with "life's victims," and highlighted its "copious homoerotic undertones." Philip French of The Observer called it a "homoerotic film with a succession of often striking, dreamlike images." Eric Hansen of Variety observed that "though technically poor and dramatically erratic, this metaphoric, slightly surrealistic look at life in the Russian military packs a punch."
Source Novel
The film is adapted from the novel 100 Days Before the Command (Russian: Сто дней до приказа) by Yuri Polyakov, which was published in the 1980s (the novel circulated in samizdat prior to official publication). The title refers to the period leading up to a soldier's demobilization order.
