The death of Stalin – A review

After the death of the absolute leader of the communist party of the Soviet Union: Joseph Stalin a power struggle starts between the chief of the secret police: Lavrenti Beria (Simon Russell Beale) and Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi).

Being an European I was never truly raised in the absolute anti-communist environment of the (let’s say) post-McCarthyism United States. We looked at the Soviet Union with interest –it being our neighbours and it having nuclear weapons. So something to be wary of.

It was only really after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crumble of the Soviet empire that the stories of the gulags and the secret police started to rise to the surface. This time (rather) unfiltered by any propaganda agenda. So it was only in my late teens that I learned of Stalin’s iron control of the Soviet republic.

In this sense I consider myself more objective when I read about the Soviet Union’s history; I was old enough to understand the motivations behind the actions/crimes without any preliminary childhood opinion forced upon me: a blank canvas if you will.

The death of Stalin, then, is an intriguing movie because it isn’t –per se- an accurate history lesson (as no movie can be) but rather a, hilarious, view on political twists and turns in an absolute dictatorship. Taking on this perspective it shows how fear and ambition can go hand in hand. It’s an unique movie that, in the hands of lesser storytellers, could easily have gone awry. Yet this movie manages to make an impressive dark comedy about one of the darkest chapters of human history; a tremendous feat.

Dark history: hilarious

When I watched Thor Ragnarok recently I was having a blast. It was only after the credits rolled that I realized that this movie is quite the bloodbath. My latest count estimates that, during the running time of this movie, over a million people die on screen. Yet the movie is hilarious. Why is this? Two simple reasons really. You could call them comedy scriptwriting rules one and two: ‘Don’t show the mayhem in all its bloodiness’ and ‘don’t linger on the grieving aftermath’.

It’s the old anecdote of Stanislavski, Chekhov and the cherry orchard.

That’s why comedies can make of the most outlandish things happen to characters. Home Alone’s (1990) criminals Harry and Marv should have died several times over in this movie due to Kevin’s traps yet they brush it off as if it is nothing. This makes a comedy hilarious.

The death of Stalin does the exact same thing; a few thousand people die one screen in this movie. Yet the movie doesn’t linger. The storytellers tell up front that this is a terrible time the movie is taking place in (in a small role the, always great, Paddy Considine underlines this) and then they introduce us to the main players: of which each and every character is a terrible person. So you don’t really care what happens to them. And you expect the bloodshed dripping through the nation. It’s a fine line but The death of Stalin manages it.

Dark characters

The only two –somewhat- ‘good’ guys are Buscemi’s Khrushchev and Palin’s Molotov. But anyone who knows his/her history knows that ‘good’ here is a lucid term.

Buscemi only comes across as the ‘good’ guy because an audience happens to identify with the protagonist. So Khrushchev’s ‘goodness’ is a direct result of his screen time.

The absolute villain then is Beale’s power-hungry Beria. Not because he’s much different from the other characters in his motivations and backstabbing but rather because the audience actually sees him get his hands dirty.

Again a tried and tested movie trick.

Each and every single actor is having an absolute blast playing the cleverly written scenes that ranges from physical comedy of running towards Stalin’s grieving daughter to be the first to comfort her to quick-fire dialogues filled to the brim with venom.

I, as a lifelong Monty Python fan, was especially pleased to see a relaxed Michael Palin on screen. Playing his role very straight in bizarre situations is a feast for the eyes.

Then there are Jason Isaacs playing opposite Jeffrey Tambor in contrasting roles. Isaacs plays the confident trigger-happy field Marshal of the Soviet army Zhukov with such grandiose arrogance that it highlights Tambor’s wavering Malenkov (who is in fact Stalin’s replacement and thus the new ruler).

It is this contrasting of characters that makes The Death of Stalin such a delightful viewing. Each and every character is a bastard. There are tricks pulled to make one a bit more likable over the other but in the end they are still bastards.

Red imaging

Armando Lannucci has always been more a writer than a director. His words matter and the imagery underline the words. The same goes for the Death of Stalin that does very little with the camera like a Spielberg of Cuaron would do. In this sense it could easily become a stage-play.

Nevertheless the movie looks brilliant by highlighting both the grandeur of the communist party (in the colours red and white, with large rooms) and the backstabbing secret side (black and grey, small rooms). It’s a simple way of telling a story in visuals that always works.

Dark comedies: thin ice

Dark comedies are difficult to make; especially when they deal with real life histories. La vita e bella was one that managed by allowing the balance to flip in favour of drama in the last act. The death of Stalin challenged itself by staying a comedy throughout (even in the gruesome last act). This third act might not work completely in this sense. But, then again, I considered it a nice wakeup call that I was in fact watching a re-telling of real events from history.

It’s great to laugh about Hitler in the producers or Er ist wieder da. But never forget what he did.

That’s the power dark comedies have over ‘normal’ ones.

Conclusion

The death of Stalin is a brilliant piece of writing that (I expect) wouldn’t be misplaced in a stage outing as well. It has witty dialogues and a great cast bringing the words. That fact that the time this  movie plays with is one of the darkest times in 20th century history is a daring choice that could easily have gone wrong. The fact that The Death of Stalin works so well is because it never forgets to show the darkness of the times and the characters. It might float over it and bring it a bit more tongue-in-cheek than an all-out drama would do; but it doesn’t let the audience forget it.