Original subtitles

In autumn 1952, Stalin condemns the medical profession.

Accused of a Zionist plot,

the Kremlin's Jewish doctors are the first arrested…

Come on out!

We're not here about the Zionist plot, but to…

call on your skills

as a professor of medicine.

My uncle is very ill. He has Cheynes-Stokes syndrome.

What's your prognosis?

If you're after your uncle's inheritance,

it's all sewn up.

Are you sure?

Positive.

Poor man.

Just as I thought.

You can get dressed.

Where did I get a disease like this?

I don't recall sleeping with my husband

since the war ended.

I don't know, but we'll cure it.

I'm in pain. Terrible pain.

I can imagine.

The pills will ease the pain.

I was told you could…

It won't help in your case.

And doing it wears me out.

Try these. Come back if they don't work.

Morning and evening until they're all gone.

-The pains? -No, the pills.

Don't stop if the pain goes or it'll come back.

You're not Jewish in your passport but your name is.

It's wiser nowadays, but I need to know what's what.

Come in!

All right, Abramovich, we'll talk later.

Come over here. Sit down.

We haven't had a chat for a while now.

I'm sorry about that. But there's so much to do.

You're well?

Very well, thank you.

Wonderful.

I wish I could say as much, but I'm kept too busy.

I haven't had your patient figures for last month.

Is everything all right? No major problems?

I'd have come if so.

Very good.

Heard about the bother at the Kremlin hospital?

Still, no concern of ours.

What does concern me, however…

is your unpopularity with certain colleagues.

It's true…

I hear things.

They say you steal patients.

I don't believe that.

People say you're an individualist.

You set yourself apart from the others.

In my opinion…

you'll need a protector

in the coming weeks and months.

I have contacts, you know.

I'll let you decide.

We could meet here in the evening

or during the lunch hour.

Don't wait until the problems begin.

My friends like a little notice. You understand?

You know we can't protect one another.

Yes. But we can denounce each other.

My desire for you is killing me!

We have so few pleasures, I can't ignore it.

You understand, don't you?

Don't forget your figures.

Good evening.

You should come to my office

when you have a moment.

All right. What's it about?

How can I put it?

It's hard to explain.

This isn't the right place. Come.

Don't wait too long.

Guess who.

I don't know.

Your mother?

Silly.

Did you have a good day?

Just an ordinary day.

And you?

A pretty good day.

Why?

I may be replacing Andreyev. He drowned last night.

Drowned? How?

In his own vomit.

People talk of cirrhosis, but many alcoholics drown to death.

Won't replacing him be too much?

No, I'll only be assistant to the deputy office chief.

Think I'll be a threat to anyone?

To the office chief. What's he like?

The same color as his office walls.

I need a word, Anna Alexandrovna.

Yes?

Well, it doesn't concern you, Nikolai Vasilyevich.

You can speak in front of my husband.

Before, husband and wife owed one another everything.

But nowadays we adhere to other values. Am I wrong?

Am I wrong?

Some other time, then.

We'll manage it.

Come on.

Right now?

Does that work?

Has it been proved medically?

It can't do any harm.

I'm sure it's my fault. We'll never manage it.

You shouldn't say that.

I was waiting.

This time, we can talk.

I'm in a hurry. Can't it wait till this evening?

What could wait on Sunday can't wait now.

Your neighbors have complained.

About the music?

No.

They've told me that you disturb…

You, not your husband.

That's why I didn't want to speak to him on Sunday.

Anyway, you disturb their peace with cries

that they claim are cries of pleasure.

Once or twice an evening for a year,

and even three times on Sunday, during the day.

Do you admit it?

Yes.

We're trying to have a baby.

I'm not contesting your motives,

but… How can I put it?

One serious question remains.

Yes? Which one?

The plaintiffs, and I have to agree,

wonder not only how a woman can take so much pleasure,

but how she can inflict it on others.

You realize that if I report the facts as they stand,

they'll be interpreted by the authorities.

We know the truth.

They may try their best,

but do they have the ability to judge?

So who will interpret the facts?

If the neighbors say it's lasted a year now,

why didn't they complain sooner?

What are you implying?

Nothing at all. I have to go. I'm sorry.

Of course, you may go.

Thank you.

I'll think it over, then.

To see the director.

Got an appointment?

He told me to come anytime.

But he didn't say when.

No, he said anytime.

I'm not sure he's here.

Doctor Atlina. Come in, comrade, come in.

Have a seat, please.

You were right to come.

You inspire jealousy.

People flock to your consultation.

You know why.

I've been asked to report you,

and since I haven't, others are threatening to do it.

I don't know what to do.

Apart from talk to you.

We have to say goodbye now.

I just wanted you to know,

if you are bothered it won't be because of me.

I'll see you out.

Thank you.

Here you go.

This is all they gave me.

Usually it's better.

I bet this sheep walked from Vladivostok

and we get the wolves' leftovers.

And we're privileged, remember.

Good thing we still have love.

I have my period.

We'll never manage it.

We will…

Uncle Anton is here.

I think I'll have to keep him.

How is he?

More and more off his rocker.

How are you, Uncle Anton?

Better wouldn't be proper.

Vasily, Anton wanted to take a sauna with you.

From the ministry store.

Keep the meat. Anton caught a carp for lunch.

I imagine you won't be able to stay very late.

Know what that pig Zhdanov said about Shostakovich before dying?

"The fellow is a counter-revolutionary,

since the people cannot even hum his music."

Shostakovich…

My sister said you work like crazy.

Why?

You like physics that much?

If I don't work, I think. And if I think, I die.

Don't cut too much off.

You know,

Stalin has his own logic,

and it's not within everyone's grasp.

It's served us well thus far.

Say what you like,

but I was never bothered during the pre-war purges.

Nor your poor late father.

All the same,

we had considerable responsibilities.

That shows he has his criteria.

Are you all right?

Yes, I'm fine.

If you're fine, you're hiding something.

I prefer you to feel bad.

Yes, if you like, I feel bad.

That's better.

My head's spinning…

But the pain has gone.

It won't be back.

-I don't need to see you again? -No.

Doctor Atlina?

Yes.

Follow us.

What do I tell my patients?

They'll see you go. Get your things.

We're not going to the Lubyanka?

Why?

Did you hear someone say we were?

Excuse me, where's the bathroom, please?

You can go after you're searched.

So what do I do?

Stand up. It's your turn.

Atlina?

Did I tell you not to sit down?

You're trembling. Are you cold?

Do you know why you're here?

No, master.

I'm no one's master. Just a comrade.

Comrade Stalin.

I'm told you have a power.

A power that I don't possess.

Not at all, Comrade Stalin.

You're a urologist.

I have no urological problems.

But I've heard of a power in your hands,

a sort of magnetism that eases pain, is that right?

People exaggerate, Comrade Stalin.

Only witches have powers like that.

We've swept aside such beliefs

that blind the people.

Yet magnetism exists.

Some have it in their eyes, others in their hands.

I just dismissed my personal physician.

He's suspected of being involved in a Jewish doctors' plot.

The thing is, I don't have a doctor now.

My enemies say, "The old man is sick.

He's not getting care.

He'll soon croak."

So, do you have a gift?

Just a tiny gift.

My services tell me otherwise.

Do you work on the illness or the pain?

Both.

If you can relieve me, that'll be something.

My arteries cause me incredible pain.

Maybe you can help more than those charlatans.

My head hurts, my legs hurt…

My left thigh is aching.

Show me if you can help me.

Come closer.

You're not laying your hands on Christ.

You're looking at me. What do you see?

I don't resemble my official portraits.

I never wanted to be an icon, but the people need one.

I'm tired.

Go to the gramophone and play the second piece.

After we finish, put it on again.

The music soothes me.

Do I need to undress?

That won't be necessary.

-Are you sure? -Positive.

It burns!

If there's any evil in this, you'll pay.

Carry on.

I must have dozed off.

What time is it?

Ten o'clock.

That late?

I felt heat.

Intense heat instead of the pain.

You'll come back.

I should point out that no one must know about this.

If word gets out, in the interest of the people,

I shall have to have you eliminated.

You can count on me.

You're married to a scientist who works for a ministry.

Do you trust him?

Yes, very much.

What trust can I place

in someone devoted to somebody else?

Let's say he's arrested tomorrow.

That he mentions our acquaintance to avoid torture.

Interrogation has the perverse effect

of making people talk without being questioned.

Do you think I imposed terror with a light heart?

Men must accept that at any time, for no precise reason,

they can be returned to that absolute modesty known as death.

Do you know why Hitler lost the war?

He gave his men too many certainties.

If someone believes he is doing right, one day he becomes lax…

and thinks of biting the hand that caressed him.

Think hard about your husband.

I'll tell him nothing.

Analyze the situation more methodically.

Our acquaintance could well require you to leave him.

That's just my advice.

I'm sure your intelligence will lead you to the same conclusion.

I have to have breakfast now.

I'll send for you when I need you.

We're here.

Arrested yesterday,

absent this morning and here now.

Care to explain?

I was ill this morning, that's all.

There's something I don't understand.

No one is ever arrested only to reappear the next day.

If I was arrested, it was thanks to you,

you and that muzhik.

You're wrong.

You're wrong!

Until now, I've always protected you!

True, as a professional, I have to make reports,

but I've never gone as far as I could.

Nothing to say?

All I can say to you, comrade,

is that you have sex on the brain!

Your figures!

You think you're so tough!

So be it.

I have to file a report on your absence.

I'll forget your insolence…

For now.

You disappoint me, Atlina.

But I can still turn a blind eye.

You know my conditions.

Something wrong, Anna Alexandrovna?

No, I…

I was short of breath.

The heating's on too high?

Others have said so too.

But we can't do a thing.

I thought you'd been arrested.

I slept somewhere else.

Meaning?

I was at another man's place.

What other man?

A man.

Whom you met how?

I'm treating him.

We had the world's strongest marriage,

but now you've slept with another man?

Who is he? What does he do? Where does he live? Why him?

He's powerful in the Party.

But why?

Can he give you a child?

Or can he protect you as a doctor?

I don't know.

It happened because it had to.

What will you do now?

Leave you.

Leave me?

Why are you doing this?

Why do I have to lose everything all at once?

Do you want to get divorced?

Yes.

What can a powerful man do for you?

Except drag you down when he falls from power?

You were safe with me.

Do you want me…

to leave now? Do you want to think it over?

No, I'll leave.

I need to get organized. It won't take long.

If you regret it, I want you to know

I'll be here, waiting.

Because I love you.

I'm sorry, Vasily.

For pity's sake, don't pity me.

Come on!

What's wrong?

It burns all the time.

All right. Lie down.

What do you drink?

Water.

Don't tell me lies!

Vodka.

What do you do?

I make cologne for Party members.

Do you drink it often?

It happens.

I was told you could help.

Yes.

Lie down. I'll try something.

You should give up the cologne.

I can't help it.

I was in the corridor

an hour ago and you had no patients left.

Now why would a lady doctor stay so late after work

if not to put off the moment to go home?

Only natural if you share a communal apartment,

but that's not your case.

-You were waiting for me. -Touch me and I'll scream!

Choose carefully, then!

A scream you threaten me with, one I can give you,

or the scream they'll extract from you when the time comes!

Roy, Roy. Hello, beauty.

Sorry I wrecked your store.

Forget it.

You didn't want any brawls unless they were over you.

Remember?

Undress completely. Just keep your panties on.

What's this?

A capsule.

What for?

It's a repellent to keep insects out of a woman's fur.

Like the stuff in cupboards to keep moths away.

It's safe.

Security will have to analyze it all the same.

-Who made it? -I did. I'm a doctor.

It's an experimental product

that I'm testing on myself.

It could be good for the people.

But if I lose it here,

months of work will go to waste.

That's how it is.

If you want it back, file a request.

Get dressed.

There, it's over.

Poskrebyshev!

You relieved me the other night. You're gifted.

But pain is like a battered wife.

Reason does not prevent their return.

We overdid it tonight. A five-hour dinner.

To reach the conclusion that I am surrounded

by children and blind kittens.

And alcoholics.

Sit down. I won't say it every time.

The Americans know how to make movies.

The translation's the problem. Bolshakov!

He recites the translation but is always a few seconds late.

One is tempted to get rid of such fellows.

I never tire

of a scene in Chaplin's The Great Dictator,

which we saw first tonight.

One Jew says to another,

"You're so used to misfortune, when there isn't any

it seems to make you unhappy."

Where was I?

Yes…

The Americans.

I was fond of Roosevelt.

A well-read man with a great deal of subtlety.

Nothing like his successor…

That shirt salesman, Truman.

So proud to tell me he had the atom bomb.

He dropped it on Japan to scare me.

That's the only reason.

Just to scare me!

Aren't you scared?

Scared of what?

Of the way I confide in you.

Aren't you thinking,

"What if he regrets it tomorrow?"

-Am I wrong? -You're wrong, Comrade Stalin.

Even if I am wrong, did you heed my advice?

Have you kept our meetings to yourself?

I haven't told anyone about them.

How did you explain your absence to your husband?

I told him I had a lover.

And that I was leaving him.

Divorce is no use unless you part physically.

How will you go about it?

I don't know, I…

I haven't managed to find a solution yet.

I have no power to allocate you an apartment.

I'm just Stalin.

Work something out.

Tell me and I'll see what I can do.

Take care of my legs now.

I'm in a lot of pain.

Terrible pain.

The revolution cannot defeat women's interest in their looks.

As soon as they rise, they turn to their mirrors.

I feel better this morning.

Have you noticed? No one comes to wake me.

Circumstances could require it at times, but no.

No one ever takes that responsibility.

Events are requested to wait, whatever happens.

When the Germans entered the Soviet Union,

I didn't find out until three hours later,

when I woke up.

Can you tell me what difference it made?

None, none at all.

It didn't take three hours longer to throw them out.

I may be able to solve your accommodation problem.

Remember?

Something wrong?

I presume I can't do anything.

You were expecting us, comrade?

Our orders aren't for you.

We've come to fetch Vasily Nikolayevich.

What?

You must be mistaken.

You're here for me.

Anna Alexandrovna.

He has two minutes.

They're here for me?

It's better.

Believe me, you're mistaken.

Could you check, please?

Anna Alexandrovna.

Excuse me.

I'll soon join my parents.

I just hope it won't take too long.

Please, don't get up.

I preferred to come here.

My office would have made it too official.

You seem very upset.

Has something bad happened?

No.

This is a file on you

drawn up by some ill-intentioned comrades.

Your absences,

your puzzling presence at the hospital…

They say your medical practices

pander to the people's propensity for the irrational.

I refused to pass it on to the authorities.

Why?

Because I love you. That's all.

I came to see you

because I fear our paths may part for good.

I sincerely hope you will come to no harm.

I have to go.

Forgive me if I've saddened you.

You're here at last.

I'm in agony today.

I'm suffering and you act shy.

My legs…

My legs…

You expend your youth to give me a little.

Such sacrifice deserves a reward.

Do you have any ideas?

I want nothing for myself.

But my husband has been arrested.

I know. Your mother and uncle too.

I solved your problem.

I couldn't have you moved to a new apartment.

I'd have been accused of granting privileges.

So the state took charge of your husband.

He's being housed at the Lubyanka.

In less than a week,

I'm going to Georgia,

to my dacha, Cold Stream.

I'm taking you.

You and my mineral water.

There were two other things to see to. I forget which.

Ah, yes…

I learned your husband is Jewish.

-Did you know he was Jewish? -No.

You couldn't. He doesn't know himself.

His parents changed nationality at the Revolution.

To show their enthusiasm.

Not enough, though. Since then,

they've been executed.

The other thing… Yes.

I remember now.

I was told that…

during your second search…

you were found with a capsule on you.

Cyanide.

An ill-intentioned person

might think you were planning to poison me.

Yet you didn't.

So why?

Why the capsule?

When you see so many people arrested…

and sometimes executed…

according to a logic…

that you alone know,

because no one in this country

is capable of understanding it,

you prepare to die,

as painlessly as possible.

Very well…

That's enough for this evening.

Do you know

you've become indispensable to me?

I'm not indispensable, Comrade Stalin.

I used to eliminate anyone indispensable to me.

Those people have since proved that they weren't.

But you're different.

I'm seeing you in daylight for the first time.

I discover a pretty woman with beautiful hair.

A beautiful Russian that we can be proud of.

Nature is beautiful.

A pity it's so contradictory.

That's why we've brought it to heel.

I have news of your husband.

I'll read it to you later.

This evening, I'm having dinner with my old Georgian friends.

Come tonight at around three.

Bring your hands.

I'll come with my pain.

I promised you this.

News of your husband.

Where his health is concerned,

the news is good.

As for the rest…

He was tortured for a long time.

I never gave such instructions.

Apparently, he has got over it.

Your husband has a sense of humor.

"I had nothing to give you and yet you took everything."

Your husband has only one testicle.

Did you know that?

They offered to spare it,

"If you tell us what we want to hear."

"What do you want to hear?"

Yes, they can't know that.

The right question is,

"Who does your wife see in the evening?"

They don't know and neither does he.

"We'll leave you that ball,

but we'll make such a mess of your mind,

you'll never be able to give it orders again."

He still hasn't said you have a lover.

If the torturers are earnest, they must carry on a little.

I beseech you.

Never implore me.

You should eat more.

You'll wither away.

You miss your family.

Is that it?

But we'll go back to Moscow soon.

Do you have children?

No.

Not yet. Do you?

I'm already a grandfather.

The latest was just born.

What's his name?

Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin.

Putin.

Goodbye.

Your husband talked after an ordeal

that not even a dead man could have resisted.

He said he knew you were seeing someone in power.

He didn't give a name.

Of course, he doesn't know it.

We go back to Moscow tomorrow.

I've looked at your husband's file.

It would be a waste to get rid of a good physicist,

even a Jewish one.

Our top scientists are building a nuclear submarine.

Your husband will join them.

He will be housed on site.

That way, you'll be rid of him.

The difference between Hitler and me

is that his racism blinded him

until he lost sight of his interests.

What about my mother and uncle?

Can't you do something?

Does your husband drink?

No.

No.

He's never drunk much.

People working on projects exposed to radiation

have one defense against the rays: alcohol.

But we cannot have submarines being built

by men who drink vodka around the clock.

But if we forbid them to drink, they're bound to end up dead.

That's only a problem if they die before completion.

That's politics, you see.

Endless decision-making.

And there's no one who can do it for me.

I'll miss this place.

Something tells me

I'll never see it again.

And something tells me that you will outlive me.

Would you have bet on it?

Enough!

Enough, it doesn't help anymore.

I'm in agony today.

My head's going to explode.

The people are scared, but what do they know of my fears?

What do they know of my fears?

Music… Put some music on.

Bring me the water from the desk.

"I have been informed

that Anna Alexandrovna Atlina,

a hospital urologist,

works for foreign powers.

Questioning her or deporting her could have its drawbacks.

Have her eliminated."

You're back, Vasily Nikolayevich.

You look…

I was going to say well. No, you have some color.

We're all orphans now.

So sad, isn't it?

Did you hear? The Jewish census has been suspended.

I don't know why I'm telling you.

It didn't concern you.

The Abramoviches were the only Jews in this building.

You don't know the Abramoviches?

Very orderly people. It just goes to show.

Vasily.

Oh, my love…

My love…

I didn't think you'd be here.

Have you left him?

Left him…

or maybe he's been deported, maybe he's dead.

No, I'll explain.

Of course.

There are things we can explain over and over

and that we'll never understand.

I just hope he didn't hurt you.

I'm tired.

I've never loved another man but you.

There has never been

another man but you in my life.

Never.

Never.

So it was a dream.

We lived out a sort…

of dream.

I knew it.

I knew it.

Vasily died when his son was two, on May 15, 1957.

A man's death is a tragedy.

The death of millions of men is a statistic.

Joseph Stalin