The Death of Stalin (Dir. Armando Iannucci, 1h 46m)
As Josef Stalin is apocraphyally said to have said, "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic". In the latest of his political dramadies, Armando Iannucci, accident prophet of 24-hour news (The Day Today), and acupuncture-precise satirist (The Thick of It, Veep) now turns to the aftermath of that single death, that of Stalin himself, and the bitter struggle for power over the USSR, in a darkly comic work that, with its usage of alternative facts in the ever-shifting power structure of
Georgy Malenkov's interim rule of the USSR, as well as the character-and rifle-based executions, is just as salient today as it was in 1953-it's a chaotic, bleakly funny piece.
At the centre of the piece is Steve Buscemi's portrayal of Khrushchev, around which the film flows-first as a mere member of Stalin's inner circle, then as one of the figures vying to be his successor, and finally as the head of the Communist Party. As with Khrushchev, the film itself evolves.
First, the film's farcial beginnings; Josef Stalin is head of the Communist Party, and has ruled not only over the USSR for the best part of thirty years, but sent the best part of thirty million Russians to their death via brutal and horrifying purges of almost every strata of the country, from generals to doctors. Iannucci's genius is thus to show Stalin as a crude, foul humoured, and moreover, rather crass old man, enjoying cowboy movies, practical jokes-Khrushchev is subjected to one involving a tomato early on. When his death comes some twenty or so minutes into the film, expertly cut with a forced re staging of an entire classical concert, and the seemingly daily execution of "enemies of the state", it's laughing at a note that strips to the bone exactly what his people seem to think of him.
Thus, the farce begins-Stalin is dead, and no-one seems to know what to do. Here, Iannucci perfectly blends the historical-Stalin was left for almost three days, with people too afraid to touch him-with the comedic, with the Man of Steel being man-handled through the corridors of power by his men, left prone in his own urine, and a passive participant in the ensuing chaos. At one point, Beria, the head of the NKVD, and the closest the film has to a villain, chides his fellow Politburo members for using the Great Leader's feet to direct the way as they move him to his bed, and when he's placed upon it, two of the group are promptly trapped under him. Khrushchev. at this point, seemingly as clueless, and bereft at the loss of Stalin, although already there is the sense that Khrushchev is more of a progressive than much of the rest of the party.
Around the prone Stalin, the vulture swarm, and thus the film begins to move into its second act, thus introducing the figures, from the unsure and fatally flawed Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), constantly asking assurance from, and (clearly manipulated by) the sinister Beria (Simon Russell Beale) to the kindly, old, and somewhat naive Molotov (Michael Palin). Here, with Malenkov placing himself in charge, as the Deputy Head of the Communist Party, Beria begins to reform the entire nation, starting with the release of many of the prisoners of the state, (including Molotov's wife, who, in one of Iannucci's most savage twists of humour, is denounced by both Khrushchev and Molotov before she is revealed to be alive by Beria).
Here, Iannucci draws clear parallels between the very concept of De-Stalinisation (and indeed, in the process of censorship and revisionism that took place in the USSR throughout its existence), and the idea of "alternative facts", with Beria noting that the facts of Stalin's period were, after all, of Stalin's time, and the world has moved on and changed greatly in the few weeks since his death. Moreover, however, the film begins to show, despite Molotov's protestations, that the party has begun to factionalise, under the ineffectual and somewhat vain Malenkov, into that under Beria and that under
Khrushchev, who, despite being forced to organise Stalin's funeral, begins to play his hand, first beginning to isolate Beria and Malenkov, then making Malenkov suspicious of Beria's influence over him.
Iannucci, in short, turns the farce slowly but surely into a political satire-whilst the physical comedy doesn't entirely dissipate from the film-the remarkably comic rounding up of the entire staff of Stalin's dacha, and the later coup against Beria are highlights. The comedy, however, does become more cerebral, if still foul-mouthed, with the count of four-letter words steadily increasing, many of them from Jason Isaac's General Zhukov (привет, Джейсон Исаакс!), and thus the conspiracy against Beria begins to thicken, with Khrushchev's plot pulling together, first bringing the rest of the Politburo together, then, with Zhukov's help, bringing the army onside, thus defanging the NKVD, before finally slamming the trap shut on Beria.
The film concludes with the ironic fact that, just as Khrushchev succeeded in a power-struggle, so Brezhnev deposed Khrushchev, despite the former's de-Stalinisation-this, in my honest opinion, is the film's only real failing-completing the transformation of "Nikki" into the man who not only began to change Russia, but brought it to the brink of nuclear war with America. Nevertheless, the rest of the film is beautifully wrought, from the dingy cramped flats of even the major Politburo members, to the opulence of the Kremlin-the humour comes thick and fast, everything from the very bleakest-this film, after all, comes very close to the bone in certain sections, in only a way that Iannucci can write-to the downright comic, with Khrushchev wearing his pyjamas under his suit, to the amusement of the rest of the Politburo.
Throughout the film, however, one is reminded of a quote from the figure, arguably, closest in influence after Stalin, Vladimir Putin: "Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart.
Rating: Must See
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