Смерть Сталина

When I had the free preview of the various movie channels over the Thanksgiving weekend, one of the movies I recorded was The Death of Stalin.

Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953, of a cerebral hemmorhage. His brutality is, of course, well known, as is his being an absolute dictator. The movie starts off with what seems like an example unrelated to the rest of the movie. Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) is listening to a orchestra program on Radio Moscow and on hearing it, decides he wants a recording of the orchestra, calling up the studio to inform them of this. The only problem is that the broadcast was going out live, and the radio engineers didn't record the broadcast! So the chief engineer decides he has to reassemble the orchestra, soloist, and audience, and recreate the broadcast, not that everybody there wants to do it. The vignette is also a good way of showing how the movie is going to be a dark comedy.

At any rate, Stalin does get his recording, and as he's listening to it, he suffers that hemorrhage. This was a few days before he died, so there was a lot going on with Stalin's subordinates in that interim period. In the movie, Stalin's condition isn't noticed to the next morning. Although Stalin was a dictator with near absolute power, he did have the equivalent of a Cabinet (known as the Central Committee) to carry out his orders, and these members assemble.

Lavrenty Beria (Simon Russell Beale) is the one everybody fears. He had been head of the secret police (still called the NKVD here since that's what people in English-speaking audiences would recognize; in reality there were a few incarnations between the NKVD and the KGB and it was one of those that existed at the time). Since people fear Beria, he knows they're not going to let him take power, and he tries to get a pliant puppet installed to allow himself to be the power behind the throne. His choice is Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), whose name you may recall from the Billy Joel song "We Didn't Start the Fire".

Also in the Central Committee are Foreign Minister Molotov (Michael Palin), who only shows up later because of his shaky political position; head of the Moscow branch of the Communist party Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi); and eventually Marshal Zhukov (Jason Isaacs), a World War II hero who is portrayed here as still the head of the army's forces around Moscow. Beria has ordered the army back to barracks, and Zhukov's attempt to get the army back out in public, with help from Khrushchev, is part of the main dramatic thrust of the film.

But as I said, the film is also a dark comedy, and that shows up in spades with Stalin's funeral, which is a huge public event as befits an absolute dictator. As with something like The Fireman's Ball, all of the various members of the Central Committee want to make themselves look better in the eyes of the public, as though this will enhance their own standing in trying to take power over the entire Committee. Stalin's two children also show up, and want their own part in the funeral, which is understandable considering they were his children. If you know your Soviet history, you'll recall that Khrushchev ultimately gained power, with Beria being the last victim of the purges.

The Death of Stalin is an interesting movie, and I admire the director's daring attempt to turn the Central Committee into a bunch of bumblers worthy of black satire. However, I also felt it didn't always work. Part of the problem is that there are any number of errors in history as well as what felt like serious continuity errors. Even though Stalin died in March, the Moscow here seemed to have no snow and deciduous trees with leaves on them. And although Beria was purged, it wasn't in the way depicted in the movie. But I can understand telescoping events for dramatic effect. For me, the bigger problem was with the dialogue, which felt thoroughly unnatural, and took me out of the era.

The acting, however, I felt was quite good as everybody seemed adept at handling the dark comedy. And the comic parts are very darkly humorous. Overall, I'd definitely recommend The Death of Stalin, which you can find on DVD if you wish to watch it yourself.