There is no greater nightmare than bureaucracy.

Two prosecutors It begins with the opening of a prison gate and ends with another closing. This circular trajectory defines the journey of the hero, Kornev, a young prosecutor in Stalin's Russia, who, upon discovering the torture and forced confessions to which the survivors of the old guard of the Communist Party in his region are subjected, wants to bring this scandal to the attention of the Soviet leadership. The problem, however, is that his idealistic perspective (that of someone who is "still a virgin," as some characters who believe themselves to be on his path mockingly suggest) is the only one that fails to recognize the corrupt world in which he moves.

The Ukrainian Sergei Loznitsa has dedicated a good part of his career to portraying the ignominious past, present, and probably future of the Russian government, as well as the resilience of the individuals who remain under its control. But while on other occasions he has opted for striking parables that lean towards the grotesque, in Two prosecutors (The fifth fiction film in a filmography rooted in documentary) opts for the opposite strategy: a suffocating grip, tightened with the immutable calm of someone who knows the outcome of the game, and unfolding through a bureaucracy that creates a labyrinth of drawn-out time. In this sense, the most unsettling figure in the work is surely that of the man standing next to a bust of Lenin on the landing of the stairs in an administration building, asking in a whisper where the exit is.