Review of The Death of Stalin (2017) by Meritcoba — 09 Mar 2018

I have not been much interested in Stalin, even though he is an pivotal figure in history, but for his death. The events surrounding his death (and the struggle for power that ensues) made me think of the death of Tiberius, the Roman emperor who succeeded Augustus and was succeeded in turn by Caligula. There are similarities there, even though Tiberius struck me as the more sympathetic ruler of the two. One moment especially made the connection, Tiberius lies on his deathbed, but he suddenly seems to come back to life. Caligula, who has taken the signet ring from the emperor's hand, cringes, pleads and begs his excuses. The emperor falls back on to the bed and is finally definitely dead. Another version has the head of the guard choke the emperor to death. Almost a similar moment can be found in this movie when Stalin seems momentarily to recover, making Beria, head of the security services, cringe and terrified as well. He was already setting in motion the takeover of power. Something the dictator might not see in a favorable light.

The movie is a terrible movie, for it shows what shocking terror the people in the Soviet Union had to live with under this most abject of rulers. And even though it might look over the top, reading up on sources will show you that it was like that. There is a danger to compare him to Hitler, that other abject ruler but let's not go into that. The terror can be felt in every scene and one of the shocking moments sees the entire house of Stalin being emptied by security forces and most of the staff and guards get shot by other guards. Beria's orders do not even spare his own men. Nobody is safe. The scene ends with a truck driving off with the guard ordering it to drive away getting shot in the head by another guard.

The movie is positioned as a comedy and a drama, and even though there is a certain comedy, mostly very dark, at no point is this cheap or over the top. Point in case is the opening scene. We witness the end of concert which is broadcast by a radio station. The phone rings: it is Stalin. He instructs the man to ring him back in 17 minutes. Terrified the man calls back and is then instructed to deliver a recording of the concert to dictator. But they did not record the event. And panic ensues as they redo the concert as to record it and, of course, everything goes wrong. It is funny in a way, but the underlying terror and dread is palpable. You might think this is all not real, but we know from history that Stalin actually did this. The acting is superb and I cannot actually say who takes the cake here, Buscemi is excellent as Khrushchev, Beale matches his with his portrayal of Beria. But also Tambor makes a marvelous role as weak Malenkov and Palin does a nice job as sycophant Molotov. My opinion is that one should invent an oscar for the best group of actors in a movie. My vote would be for this movie.

If there is a crucial moment in the movie then it is the moment that Beria, losing grip on the situation, threatens the other members of the Central Committee. You could feel that it would backfire. And we see how Khrushchev makes use of the moment in a marvelous but, for him no doubt, nerve-wracking manner.

The movie is an incredible well done teamwork and I love it is done by people like Buscemi, Tambor and Beale. Give actors a good script and they pull it off. This is how movies should be. It is why I often blame the badness of movies not on the actors, but on the director and the script. I would almost give this one a ten. The reason I don't give it a 10 is because the movie takes shortcuts with history. A cursory glance says that some of the events did not happen that way. Just read up on Beria's death.