‘Mr. Jones’ recalls era when New York Times lied about genocide

About 50 minutes into “Mr. Jones,” Agnieszka Holland’s new film about Joseph Stalin’s man-made famine that killed millions in Ukraine, there’s a 30-minute vision of hell as terrifying as that in any horror movie.

British journalist Gareth Jones (James Norton) has defied his Soviet handlers and smuggled himself into the Ukrainian countryside, the supposed breadbasket of Europe, in the dead of winter. He quickly realizes something is desperately wrong in this part of the Soviet empire: Starving people grab for scraps of an orange peel he discards on a train; a man trades Jones a heavy winter coat in subzero temperatures for a loaf of bread.

When he disembarks, he sees just why this famine is so severe. Stalin’s men are loading up all the grain on trucks and shipping it to Moscow.

Jones flees from the police after being denounced as a spy, and it’s here where Holland’s vision of terror truly kicks in. Ukraine is a whitewashed wasteland, drifts of snow and a vicious wind sweeping across empty plains and hollowed out town. At one point, Jones sees a man carrying a sled of the dead, like something out of Monty Python. But this is no joke: A baby crying next to her deceased mother is thrown atop the sled like a sack of potatoes. Jones, and we, know implicitly the baby will share the mother’s fate. There’s no room for pity in this world of horror.

Holland drains the land of color, applying a filter that makes the world of Ukraine appear to be one of drab grays and dirty whites. One of the few splashes of color we see comes when Jones takes out the aforementioned orange; it shines like a golden beacon in this world of rib cages and hollow eye sockets.

Stalin was undoubtedly the general leading this crime against humanity, but he had lieutenants. And not all were Russian. Foremost among them was Walter Duranty (Peter Sarsgaard), the New

“Mr. Jones” is, in many ways, a film about Duranty; indeed, Holland and writer Andrea Chalupa seem uncertain that we can understand his story without reference to other, more famous writers from the era.

Duranty comes in for a beating – and for good reason: It’s high time this tool of genocide got his comeuppance onscreen.

Dante famously suggested that the lowest circle of hell was made not of fire but ice, a bone-chilling cold. And who were the worst of the worst? Those whose sin was treachery. Those who betrayed their friends and their principles for lucre and safety and comfort. If there is any justice in the next world, Duranty – a traitor to his profession for his willingness to trade in lies; a traitor to humanity for his willingness to sacrifice millions in the quest for a worker’s paradise – is there now, wandering through the icy wastelands of Ukraine, starving children following him.

Lord knows there’s no justice in this world. Title cards that close out the film reveal Duranty retains the Pulitzer he won for his dishonest reporting that helped cover up the deaths of millions. Perhaps it’s time that changed.