Armando Iannucci moves from the contemporary Western political sphere and into the bloody world of the post-war Stalinist Soviet Union...
There’s no one quite like Armando Iannucci when it comes to finding the humour within political chaos. Whether it’s in The Thick of It, In The Loop (the spin-off film from the same series) or Veep, he is unparalleled in capturing the manic scramble for power, that desperation to stay one step ahead, perfectly showing up modern day politics for the dick-measuring farce it is.
Now, he has moved away from the contemporary Western political sphere and into 1950s Communist Russia for his most accomplished film to date, The Death of Stalin. Comedically, it has all of the hallmarks of an Iannucci project. Satirising the last few days of the dictator’s life, and the power struggle that followed his death, Iannucci is right at home in presenting a political world rife with incompetence, blind ambition and backstabbing. But the change in backdrop ramps the stakes up far higher than his previous projects. Whilst the most Malcolm Tucker or Selina Meyer ever risked was their political careers, the setting of Stalin’s post-war Soviet Union allows Iannucci to include the very likely (and historically accurate) possibility of the wrong political move being met with a bullet in the head. And in The Death of Stalin, there are a lot of wrong political moves.
Much of the humour stems from the cult of personality Stalin implemented, with his underlings terrified of saying the wrong thing, or being seen to not be 100% committed to the Stalinist cause. Characters return home from meetings and repeat every comment they’ve made to the dictator to their wives in order to remember what amused him and what didn’t. The whimsical threat of execution lingers in the air whenever Stalin is around, with characters forgetfully reference former colleagues who have been shot, as Jeffrey Tambor’s Georgy Malenkov remarks, “How am I meant to remember who has and hasn’t been shot?”
It isn’t Iannucci’s funniest work, but it’s his most well-rounded and, arguably, his best.
No one attempts a Russian accent and it doesn’t matter; Iannucci presents a class structure of his own with a variety of British and American dialects. Simon Russell Beale’s Lavrentiy Beria has the snooty accent of a British public school snide, whereas WWII hero Georgy Zhukov (Jason Isaacs) speaks with the blustering gusto of a die-hard Bolton Wanderers fan. Adrian McLoughlin plays a Stalin with the voice and demeanor of Alan Sugar during a particularly vicious Apprentice firing; adroitly presenting the sense of invincibility around the dictator that ensured no one had even considered a plan of succession. His untimely death inevitably leads to a power vacuum in which Beria, Malenkov and Steve Buscemi’s Nikita Khrushchev all vie for power.
It isn’t Iannucci’s funniest work, but it’s his most well-rounded and, arguably, his best. With so much at stake in every scene, we’re not left alone long enough to laugh at the chaos, as we would do with The Thick of It, because scenes of stone-faced Soviet secret police rounding up the members from Stalin’s infamous lists, mock trials being held and political prisoners being executed all too frequently remind us of the real cost of politics in Stalin’s Russia. One scene in particular towards the film’s end, in which Beria goes from seemingly being in control, to being arrested, tried, executed (whilst begging for his life), covered in petrol and burnt, and his ashes scattered in the wind in a matter of minutes is mesmerisingly brutal.
The script is, as expected, packed with Iannucci’s (as well as co-writers Ian Martin and David Schneider’s) trademark dry, insult-filled humour and a stellar cast, which also includes Michael Palin, Andrea Riseborough, Olga Kurylenko, Rupert Friend and Paddy Considine perfectly complement his work. The Death of Stalin doubtlessly strengthens Armando Iannucci’s claim as the undisputed master of political comedy.
The Death of Stalin is screening at Broadway Cinema until Thursday 9th November
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