Armando Iannucci
The Death of Stalin

The image of Iosif Vissarionovich Dzugashvili (1878-1953) has increasingly acquired a negative reputation over the years, to the point of being remembered as a great dictator and being revisionistically and ahistorically compared even to Adolf Hitler. But there is no doubt that Stalin was one of the greatest, even gigantic, figures in the history of the last century, and so today - sixty-five years after his death - it is perfectly acceptable to talk about him in a parodic manner, garnished with black humor as surreal as it is intelligent, as happens in this film directed by Armando Iannucci and titled "The Death of Stalin."

Based on a graphic novel by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin, the film tells the story, with a top-notch ensemble cast, of the death of Stalin and the events that followed, particularly those concerning his succession, which constituted a thorny issue to resolve and then became a historical event in itself that changed the history of the Soviet Union and communism worldwide. In this context, Stalin's figure is represented in a farcical manner and deliberately exaggerated, as are the characteristics of the various candidates for succession, with the main contenders being the ruthless Minister of Internal Affairs Lavrentiy Beria and Nikita Khrushchev, portrayed by a magnificent Steve Buscemi, who literally steals the scene from other talented cast members (Simon Russell Beale, Paddy Considine, Michael Palin, Jeffrey Tambor, Jason Isaacs, Rupert Friend...), just as his character—presented mostly as a humble and subdued figure—grows in decisiveness and power throughout the film, becoming the absolute protagonist nearly in the same way Khrushchev himself would go on to become one of the great protagonists of 20th-century history.

A story told in a humorous and intelligent way and without any rhetoric of any kind but instead with a sort of black humor in the style of the Coen brothers, "The Death of Stalin" is not a film for the nostalgic nor for those who would claim to be, and perhaps it closes in a fittingly parodic manner without trivializing and indeed unfolding all the different implications of the case without stating who the good or bad is, a story from sixty-five years ago which we have always watched with a certain devotion and sacrality, almost as if we had the eyes of the elder statesman upon us. Nor is it a historical film, and the observations (even fair) about possible inaccuracies are certainly out of place in this sense, just as the censorship in some ex-Soviet states, starting from Russia itself, can only be considered a farce, much like the contents of the film. However, a sign that its authors may also recognize as proof of the success of their work.