Sitting in the highest office in his land, a megalomaniacal leader sits on a gilded throne. He keeps a close inner-circle of sycophants, though the cast of characters is often rotating based on his wildly impulsive whims. Once someone has been exiled from the inner-circle, their name is to never be mentioned in his presence. There’s nothing more this man loathes than facts that contradict his narrative, and when finds something that offends his tastes he demands that those around him echo his very thoughts. Reality is incapable of penetrating the cold exterior of this world leader who only holds his own greatness as an indisputable fact. I’m not talking about anyone currently sitting in the halls of power. I’m talking about the Georgian who maneuvered his way through the Russian Revolution, violently dispatched his political rivals, and sat atop the Soviet Union, Joseph Stalin.
The life of Stalin is not the subject of the new film from Armando Iannucci, the creator of HBO’s Veep and the British comedy The Thick of It. Iannucci is concerned with struggle for power in the wake of a tyrant’s demise in the pitch-black comedy The Death of Stalin. In his comedy shows, Iannucci has presented a fascination with the human fallibility within political machinations, constantly highlighting a realistic look at politics through the lens of people scrambling and reacting as opposed to meticulous planning and scheming. That tradition continues with the hilarious and bleak Death of Stalin, which never loses sight of the human toll that was inflicted through Stalin’s brutal reign and yet maintaining a consistently hilarious comedic tone. The fact that the film works at all is a testament to Iannucci’s brilliance, as the film is truly a tonal masterwork. All in all, The Death of Stalin might be the blackest comedy ever made.
It’s 1953 and Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) maintains an iron grip over the Soviet Union. Political rivals and dissidents have been purged by the orders of Stalin and carried out by Lavrentiy Beria (Simon Russell Beale), head of the USSR’s secret police. The inner circle of the party sees Stalin surrounded by Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi), Gregory Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), and Vyacheslav Molotov (Michael Palin), and each do their best to stroke the massive ego of the murderous dictator. When he’s discovered unconscious on the floor from a cerebral hemorrhage, the inner circle find themselves paralyzed with indecision as to what to do with their ailing leader, waiting to call doctors. Days pass and Stalin dies. Before Stalin died, the jockeying for power had already begun. Further complicating the struggle for power are Stalin’s two children, the emotionally fragile Svetlana (Andrea Risebough) and the drunken Vasily (Rupert Friend).
Iannucci along with co-writers David Schneider, Ian Martin, Peter Fellows, and Fabien Nury (adapting the graphic novel by Nury and Thierry Robin) builds The Death of Stalin as a comedy of errors among these desperate sycophants hungry for power. The dialogue that these real life characters employ is in line with the vulgar insults that are hurled on Iannucci’s hilarious television shows. Adding another layer to the comedic absurdity is the contradictory nature of thought that was demanded by the Stalinist Soviet Union, language so masterfully captured by George Orwell in 1984 and Animal Farm.
Throughout all the double thought and duplicitous wheeling and dealing, Iannucci never loses sight of the ghastly crimes against humanity perpetrated by Stalin and the Soviet regime. The cloud of death from the purges linger over the events of the film, even when these horrible events have comedic overtones the film never minimizes their horrific nature. It’s truly amazing the balance that The Death of Stalin is able to strike between comic absurdism and solemn mourning for those slaughtered by a murderous madman and those eager to serve at his bloodthirsty whims.
The Death of Stalin went into production well before the election of a certain would-be dictator and it has accidentally created a film that is timely about the nature of power and the behind-the-scenes conflicts that occur when there’s a shimmer of hope in moving up the ladder ever so slightly. Armando Iannucci has a rare talent in exploring the bumbling human element of political power and The Death of Stalin may very well be his masterpiece, a film that captures his talents for profane, insult-laden dialogue while using history to further his examination of dopey people and their thirst for power. So much of this film really shouldn’t be funny but it’s consistently hilarious even as it delves into some incredibly grim and dark areas. The Death of Stalin is a miracle, whether we’re talking about the actual death of the paranoid tyrant or the fact that such a smart, funny movie was made about his demise. It’s hard not to be in awe of Armando Iannucci’s immense talents and how they’re so vitally needed in these dire political times.
The Death of Stalin
- Overall Score
Summary
Possibly the darkest comedy ever made, Armando Iannucci’s The Death of Stalin is a tonal masterwork that finds plenty of humor around the death of a tyrant while never losing sight of the fact that his reign took countless innocent lives.