THE DEATH OF STALIN : Tuesday 24th April 2018.

'THE DEATH OF STALIN' which I finally got around to viewing this week is a highly acclaimed political satire Directed by the Scottish satirist, Writer, Producer and Director Armando Iannucci based on the French graphic novel 'La mort de Staline' by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin. Starring an ensemble cast, the film was shown at TIFF back in early September last year, went on release in the UK in late October, the US in early March, and here in Australia at the end of March. The film has taken US$16M at the Box Office to date, and has picked up eleven award wins and eighteen nominations including two BAFTA nods, and has been banned in Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Kyrgyzstan . . . . can't think why!

It is 1953 and the film starts off with a Mozart piano recital by Maria Yudina (Olga Kurylenko) which is broadcast live over Russian Radio from Moscow. Mid way through the recital Comrade Andreyev (Paddy Considine) who is overseeing the live broadcast of the concert, receives a phone call from a mystery speaker asking him to call Joseph Stalin in seventeen minutes, exactly. Unable to contain himself, partly out of fear and partly out of excitement, seventeen minutes clicks over and the numbers are dialled. Stalin asks for a recording of the concert just as it ends, which will be picked up later that evening from the studio. Needless to say the broadcast was not recorded, so in a mad panic Andreyev orders the gathered and and already rapidly departing guests to be reseated, while he reassembles the accompanying orchestra and Maria Yudina. But many of the audience have already left the building, the Conductor has passed out, and Maria wants nothing of it. So Andreyev brings in passersby off the street to replicate the acoustics, hurriedly replaces the Conductor with another of some repute, and bribes the disgruntled lead pianist, and restarts the whole shebang for the purposes of a single recording for one man . . . but of course, Stalin is no ordinary man!

As the recording is handed over, Maria Yudina slips a hand written note in the sleeve of the record telling Stalin he has ruined the country, that he is a Dictator and that she wishes him dead. As Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) reads it in his country residence, he is stricken and collapses from a cerebral hemorrhage. He is discovered the next day, laying where he fell and the members of the Central Committee are alerted. The first to arrive are NKVD (the interior ministry for the Soviet Union) head Lavrentiy Beria (Simon Russell Beale), who discovers Yudina's note, and Deputy General Secretary Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor). As Malenkov panics given that he is now elevated to Acting General Secretary, Beria guides him to take leadership, hoping to use him as a puppet for his own ends. Then the Moscow Party Leader Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi) arrives with the rest of the Committee, except for Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov (Michael Palin) whom Stalin had added to his hit list only the night before.

The Committee together call upon a number of Doctors to confirm whether Stalin is in fact dead, and if so, the cause of death. However, because Stalin had all the top class Doctors in Moscow killed, the Committee is forced to seek out any third rate Doctors they could find that were still alive. In the meantime Beria shuts down Moscow, orders the NKVD to take over the city's security duties from the Soviet Army, and replaces Stalin's enemy hit list with his own, granting Molotov a reprieve in the process. With Stalin on his death bed overseen by the Committee, the Doctors and Stalin's composed daughter Svetlana (Andrea Riseborough), and mentally unstable son Vasily (Rupert Friend), the ailing Dictator comes around momentarily, before finally popping his clogs. At which point the Committee members with Svetlana and Vasily, hurry back to Moscow as the NKVD pillage through Stalin's country residence, ransack the place and execute its staff and any onlookers.

Later Khrushchev goes to Molotov's home and attempts to secure his support, only to be visited by Beria at the same time seeking Molotov's loyalty by releasing his wife Polina from prison. Malenkov is in due course named Head of Government although his strings are being pulled by a controlling Beria. At the inaugural Committee Meeting in the wake of Stalin's death, Beria sidelines Khrushchev by suggesting he should take charge of Stalin's funeral much to Khrushchev's disdain but he is over-ruled by a unanimous vote (all votes are carried unanimously BTW, again largely out of fear for the possible repercussions of disagreeing). Beria also puts forward many of the liberal reforms which Khrushchev had planned to introduce, as his own ideas winning him further support from the Committee.

While Stalin's body lies in state for three days in the Hall of Columns, Beria's proposals swing into action including the release of many political prisoners, and the restrictions imposed on the Russian Orthodox Church - both of which earn Beria further support from the masses. Meanwhile, Field Marshall Georgy Zhukov (Jason Isaacs) arrives on the scene demanding answers as to why his Soviet Army troops have been sidelined, relieved of their duties and confined to barracks. Khrushchev then quietly approaches Zhukov, who agrees overwhelmingly to provide the Army's support in a coup to overthrow Beria, but only if the whole Committee concurs.

To undermine Beria's growing popularity, Khrushchev orders the trains back into Moscow so enabling thousands of mourners to travel into the city and to pay their last respects to their former leader by filing past his open casket, around which the Committee stand guard of honour. As he planned, the NKVD guards surrounding the Hall firing on the crowd, killing some fifteen hundred innocents. 

The Committee suggests laying the blame at lower ranking NKVD officers as Beria feels that blame associated with his security services will tarnish his reputation. In retaliation, he angrily threatens the Committee with incriminating documented evidence he has on them all. Molotov is the next to fall in line offering his secret support to overthrow Beria, but again, only if the entire Committee agree to it, including Malenkov. 

The day of Stalin's funeral arrives. Khrushchev tells the Committee and Zhukov that he has Malenkov's support, although at this point this is not true. Zhukov and his men overwhelm the NKVD guarding Beria and arrest him. Khrushchev convinces Malenkov into signing the papers for Beria's trial, which he does reluctantly calling that Beria deserves a fair trial. The entire Politburo find Beria guilty of treason, sexual assault, mass murder and countless rapes in a trumped up on the spot court that descends into a screaming match as Beria accuses the Politburo of hypocrisy. Beria is shot dead in the head by one of Zhukov's men, and petrol is immediately poured over the body and it is ignited where he fell. The ashes are later scattered in the wind. 

In the closing scene and some years later when Khrushchev is now the Leader of the Soviet Union (from 1958 until 1964) he is in attendance with his wife at a concert given by the pianist Maria Yudina, while future leader Leonid Brezhnev (who later succeeds him) watches over his shoulder.

There is no doubt that Iannucci has crafted a fine example of dark historical political satire at its most comically absurd and ludicrous. He has assembled a great cast too that pull off their characters dialogue and actions without missing a beat, and all delivered without a single Russian accent in sight (hearing Stalin speak with an east London accent, or Zhukov with a Merseyside accent only adds to the incongruous comedic effect). The jockeying for position by those within Stalin's inner circle immediately following his death, is both farcical and revealing in the depths that those power hungry schemesters will sink to in order to get ahead, and to stay alive, with Beria being the worst of a bad bunch and rotten to the core. Whilst this is a dark satire, it is based loosely on the political machinations of the totalitarian state at the time where paranoia, fear, famine, poverty, labour camps and widespread executions were the status quo. Naturally, these are hardly topics that would inspire mirth and merriment, but maybe that is Iannucci's end game here - to poke fun at a regime that is a blot on the historical political landscape and for some, still within living memory. And this he does, save for the final ten minutes when the comedy falls away to a more serious tone and the main protagonist gets his comeuppance in no uncertain terms. Worth a look for sure to see a fine assembled cast playing it straight, keeping it grounded and making it believable with farcical and at times frightening consequences.

-Steve, at Odeon Online-