Timur was talking about this film for a while. Finally, he’s got it from the library, so we watched it last weekend.
There’s no point in looking for historical (in)accuracies in satirical fiction. Compressing Stalin’s death (5 March 1953), the arrest (26 June 1953) and execution (23 December 1953) of Beria in just few days seems to me totally legitimate. So is Svetlana’s (Andrea Riseborough) very English indignation about the state of the herb garden at her father’s dacha. Or Maria Yudina (Olga Kurylenko, the only one who can pronounce Russian names) writing a deadly letter to Stalin. Looking at the bigger picture, portrayal of Gensek and Politburo as a ridiculous bunch of scheming mediocrities, rather than great (albeit evil) statesmen, is spot-on. That must have been especially irritating to wallowers in Soviet nostalgia*. In the light of creeping rehabilitation of Stalin in Russia, it’s hardly surprising that the movie fell victim of an open letter signed by incensed “cultural figures” (how familiar!) and was promptly banned there.
Sir Simon Russell Beale is spookily convincing as Lavrenti Beria. I liked Steve Buscemi’s acting, I just don’t believe (in Stanislavski sense) that his clown of Khrushchev could ever outmaneuver Beria. Jason Isaacs shines as Ace “What a Guy!” Rimmer-like Marshal Zhukov.
| * | In the final years of the Soviet Union, it was at least permitted to poke fun at Stalin, Khrushchev and even Lenin. I wonder if films such as To Kill a Dragon (1988), Black Rose is an Emblem of Sorrow, Red Rose is an Emblem of Love (1989), It (1989) or Anecdotes (1990) would see the light of day in contemporary Russia. |
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