1996, the best year in movie history, pt. 70: Citizen X
This 1995 HBO production is much, much better than the average made-for-cable movie of that period. I’ve seen it ten or fifteen times. It’s rewatchable because of the acting. I cherish each facial expression, every vocal intonation and contortion – even though the (Western) actors speak with Russian accents of varying thickness.
It’s based on the case of a notorious serial killer. It takes some historical liberties, one of which I’ll mention at the end of this review. How discrediting this is, I’m not sure. I can’t check all the facts, but I ought at least to read the book upon which the movie is based. Citizen X is superficially (and, therefore, deceptively) realistic; it’s hardly Amadeus, which a viewer can enjoy in good conscience as a kind of fable, realizing that much has been embellished.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Rostov Oblast, early 1980s. A body is discovered in a field.
Search the woods, Burakov, the forensic specialist (Stephen Rea), tells one of his police underlings. That’s where this person was killed.
It’s almost five o’clock, the underling complains.
I don’t care what time it is. Search the woods.
That night, as Burakov is concluding his post-mortem, seven more bodies are wheeled into the lab.
Have a nice evening, says the underling.
And that is the basic pattern of the movie: Burakov works hard to catch the killer while others drag their feet.
It’s clear that we have a serial killer on our hands, Burakov reports to a committee of local Communist Party leaders. The most prolific in Soviet history.
The response is not encouraging. Serial killing is a decadent Western phenomenon.
No wonder nothing ever gets done, Burakov confides to his immediate superior: the smirking, urbane, politically astute Colonel Fetisov (Donald Sutherland). Fetisov is on the side of the angels. But he is not a conventionally nice man. He has just been mocking Burakov’s death-odor in front of the committee – Next time, a little less diligence, a little more hygiene – scoring cheap points against his detective in public. But he means to aid him, behind the scenes, in the long run.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The killer (Jeffrey DeMunn) is an anxious little man. He recruits his victims in train stations. Most are young. He lures them into the forest and stabs them to achieve sexual gratification.
The camera lingers on him after his killings.
No glib psychopath he. We see him on the prowl, awkward with potential victims, avoiding police, receiving tongue-lashings from his boss and his wife. Always wretched. Always bracing himself for the hammer-blow. He exudes as much dread in daily life as he does in his execution scene. It’s a haunting performance.
(The movie says little about his background, which is as harrowing as anything else in the story.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
But the heart of the movie is the interplay between Burakov and Fetisov. Burakov is passionate and direct; Fetisov, ironical and cunning. Fetisov, especially, utters some delicious lines.
Burakov: He finds his victims on the trains!
Fetisov: I have never ridden the trains, but they do sometimes impede my limousine.
(Dick, my PhD adviser, used to talk like this; he, too, was on the side of the angels.)
Each man, in his own way, works for the good.
Toward the end of the movie, Burakov and Fetisov recruit a psychiatrist – Max Von Sydow, in a small but winsome role – who, congratulating them on an investigative success, delivers this line: May I say that together, you make a wonderful person.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Now, the inaccuracies. The investigation spans twelve years. The characters don’t age. Burakov has young children; they stay young. This might be an oversight, or it might be a deliberate artistic choice. Not aging, Burakov’s children subtly bring to mind the children who’ve been killed, who’ll never grow up, who haunt Burakov’s dreams.
The more serious inaccuracy – the fabrication – is Burakov’s recurring conflict with the committee of Communist Party leaders, and especially with an ogrish, blockheaded bully played by Joss Ackland (in another entertaining performance) who seethes from the end of the table whenever Burakov reports on the investigation.
I’ve read that there was no such conflict in real life. (Again, I’d have to check the book to make sure.) Bureaucratic idiocies did exist in the Soviet Union, but they may not have been so influential in this case.
The fabrication adds drama to the story, and it makes Burakov’s heroism more poignant; it also establishes why Fetisov must operate as he does. Arguably, the fabrication is artistically necessary. The story isn’t much of a procedural. The haphazardness of the policing (not Burakov’s, but the force’s) deprives this crime story of the usual pleasure that comes from watching an investigation logically unfold. Instead, the movie is driven by its personalities; and these are compelling because of what they must overcome.
I won’t decide whether the inaccuracy is fatal to the movie. I simply don’t know enough. But it remains true that the movie is absorbing to watch, with characters who are movingly played.
It’s based on the case of a notorious serial killer. It takes some historical liberties, one of which I’ll mention at the end of this review. How discrediting this is, I’m not sure. I can’t check all the facts, but I ought at least to read the book upon which the movie is based. Citizen X is superficially (and, therefore, deceptively) realistic; it’s hardly Amadeus, which a viewer can enjoy in good conscience as a kind of fable, realizing that much has been embellished.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Rostov Oblast, early 1980s. A body is discovered in a field.
Search the woods, Burakov, the forensic specialist (Stephen Rea), tells one of his police underlings. That’s where this person was killed.
It’s almost five o’clock, the underling complains.
I don’t care what time it is. Search the woods.
That night, as Burakov is concluding his post-mortem, seven more bodies are wheeled into the lab.
Have a nice evening, says the underling.
And that is the basic pattern of the movie: Burakov works hard to catch the killer while others drag their feet.
It’s clear that we have a serial killer on our hands, Burakov reports to a committee of local Communist Party leaders. The most prolific in Soviet history.
The response is not encouraging. Serial killing is a decadent Western phenomenon.
No wonder nothing ever gets done, Burakov confides to his immediate superior: the smirking, urbane, politically astute Colonel Fetisov (Donald Sutherland). Fetisov is on the side of the angels. But he is not a conventionally nice man. He has just been mocking Burakov’s death-odor in front of the committee – Next time, a little less diligence, a little more hygiene – scoring cheap points against his detective in public. But he means to aid him, behind the scenes, in the long run.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
The killer (Jeffrey DeMunn) is an anxious little man. He recruits his victims in train stations. Most are young. He lures them into the forest and stabs them to achieve sexual gratification.
The camera lingers on him after his killings.
No glib psychopath he. We see him on the prowl, awkward with potential victims, avoiding police, receiving tongue-lashings from his boss and his wife. Always wretched. Always bracing himself for the hammer-blow. He exudes as much dread in daily life as he does in his execution scene. It’s a haunting performance.
(The movie says little about his background, which is as harrowing as anything else in the story.)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
But the heart of the movie is the interplay between Burakov and Fetisov. Burakov is passionate and direct; Fetisov, ironical and cunning. Fetisov, especially, utters some delicious lines.
Burakov: He finds his victims on the trains!
Fetisov: I have never ridden the trains, but they do sometimes impede my limousine.
(Dick, my PhD adviser, used to talk like this; he, too, was on the side of the angels.)
Each man, in his own way, works for the good.
Toward the end of the movie, Burakov and Fetisov recruit a psychiatrist – Max Von Sydow, in a small but winsome role – who, congratulating them on an investigative success, delivers this line: May I say that together, you make a wonderful person.
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Now, the inaccuracies. The investigation spans twelve years. The characters don’t age. Burakov has young children; they stay young. This might be an oversight, or it might be a deliberate artistic choice. Not aging, Burakov’s children subtly bring to mind the children who’ve been killed, who’ll never grow up, who haunt Burakov’s dreams.
The more serious inaccuracy – the fabrication – is Burakov’s recurring conflict with the committee of Communist Party leaders, and especially with an ogrish, blockheaded bully played by Joss Ackland (in another entertaining performance) who seethes from the end of the table whenever Burakov reports on the investigation.
I’ve read that there was no such conflict in real life. (Again, I’d have to check the book to make sure.) Bureaucratic idiocies did exist in the Soviet Union, but they may not have been so influential in this case.
The fabrication adds drama to the story, and it makes Burakov’s heroism more poignant; it also establishes why Fetisov must operate as he does. Arguably, the fabrication is artistically necessary. The story isn’t much of a procedural. The haphazardness of the policing (not Burakov’s, but the force’s) deprives this crime story of the usual pleasure that comes from watching an investigation logically unfold. Instead, the movie is driven by its personalities; and these are compelling because of what they must overcome.
I won’t decide whether the inaccuracy is fatal to the movie. I simply don’t know enough. But it remains true that the movie is absorbing to watch, with characters who are movingly played.
