'The Death of Stalin' - Funny or not ?

[RaiderBoat]

I watched this the other night. Couldn't finish it. Amateur hour. Jobs for the boys. Worth a watch, but don't expect much. It didn't really tell the story well either. Watch it if you can. Look up some of the characters. The bloke that had a penchant for rape is well worth looking up. Beria?

There was a really good article I read about him but I can't find it now. This seems worth a shot: HISTORY's Forgotten People: Lavrentiy Beria

Stalin was a fruticake. Beria was an even more oddball fruitcake.

I'm ignorant of history. But so are most people. But you don't have to scratch deep to see some real horrors in that period.

Stalin had about 20 buzzers/bells underneath his desk apparently. Some were just to bring him is fave cocktail, others were to summon the big boys. No one really knew. But most everyone turned a whiter shade of pale when he reached underneath his desk.

Not out and out insanity. The truly insane aren't much of a problem to anyone but their immediate and close circles.

But a form of megalomania that swept everyone along with it, all fueled by good old fashioned and down to earth fear. The people that can bottle that essence and dole it out as needed, tend to get ahead in life. Sometimes a little too far ahead.

Obviously this movie was way above your educational level and you couldn’t figure out that it was a….COMEDIC commentary on how ridiculous all these Soviet Elite were and are.

Since it’s too high speed for you, I’d recommend some Enid Blyton.

 

[MOzanne]

Obviously this movie was way above your educational level and you couldn’t figure out that it was a….COMEDIC commentary on how ridiculous all these Soviet Elite were and are.

Since it’s too high speed for you, I’d recommend some Enid Blyton.

Can he handle the plot twists and intertwined relationships of 'Mr Galliano's Circus' ?

 

[The Assassin]

Especially given that he's a Scouser.

A Scouser "playing" a socialist.

 

[lokiuk]

A Scouser "playing" a socialist.

Worse than that a Scouser playing a socialist with a job

 

[MoleBath]

Point of Order: Zhukov doesn't shoot Beria. He's dragging Beria out into the courtyard to be executed when one his soldiers shoots him. The look on Zhukov's face makes it clear he's pissed the soldier fired his weapon so close to Zhukov himself.

Also the soldier then fails to clear his weapon and make a declaration .

 

[Resasi]

Brilliant in its black humorous depiction of the horrendous events of the time.

Events so awful that even clothed in humour they never fail to shock at the dark depths humanity is capable of sinking to.

A man who was responsible for the deaths of millions of his own people, a task that was participated in by millions of his own people.

A measure perhaps of Russian society that is being echoed today with Putins further demonstration of Russian savagery.

 

[Werewolf]

Also the soldier then fails to clear his weapon and make a declaration .

He's a Russian soldier; I was impressed he pointed the correct end of the weapon at Beria.

 

[Werewolf]

Brilliant in its black humorous depiction of the horrendous events of the time.

Events so awful that even clothed in humour they never fail to shock at the dark depths humanity is capable of sinking to.

A man who was responsible for the deaths of millions of his own people, a task that was participated in by millions of his own people.

A measure perhaps of Russian society that is being echoed today with Putins further demonstration of Russian savagery.

Which made his own death, lying for hours in agony, soaked in his own urine, so satisfying. Even more so the fact that, had Stalin not left strict instructions that no one was to disturb him, the guards might have checked on him in time to get medical attention that could have saved his life.

(Thump of Stalin's body hitting the floor).

First guard, "Should we investigate?"

Second guard, "Should you shut the f**k up before you get us both killed?"

 

[Dicky Ticker]

Brilliant in its black humorous depiction of the horrendous events of the time.

Events so awful that even clothed in humour they never fail to shock at the dark depths humanity is capable of sinking to.

A man who was responsible for the deaths of millions of his own people, a task that was participated in by millions of his own people.

A measure perhaps of Russian society that is being echoed today with Putins further demonstration of Russian savagery.

There was a short scene of a gulag somewhere, with a bunch of prisoners being shot one at a time. As the guard steps forward and aims the pistol, the prisoner shouts "Long live Comrade Stalin". Crack, thump, next prisoner, same thing. Gets to the next prisoner, who shouts "Long Live Comrade Stalin", to be told that Stalin was dead so the cry changed to "long live....."

If you take the time to read "the Gulag Archipelago", one thing that comes out is that a decent percentage of those who were executed for crimes against the party or the state, truly believed that they had failed by not being better comunists.

What must it take to get you to believe that you deserved to die for hte good of the country?

 

[Northern_Biff]

If you take the time to read "the Gulag Archipelago", one thing that comes out is that a decent percentage of those who were executed for crimes against the party or the state, truly believed that they had failed by not being better communists.

What must it take to get you to believe that you deserved to die for hte good of the country?

A: A whole week of trial by Twatter or a mention in the Gruniad?

 

[par avion]

There was a short scene of a gulag somewhere, with a bunch of prisoners being shot one at a time. As the guard steps forward and aims the pistol, the prisoner shouts "Long live Comrade Stalin". Crack, thump, next prisoner, same thing. Gets to the next prisoner, who shouts "Long Live Comrade Stalin", to be told that Stalin was dead so the cry changed to "long live....."

If you take the time to read "the Gulag Archipelago", one thing that comes out is that a decent percentage of those who were executed for crimes against the party or the state, truly believed that they had failed by not being better comunists.

What must it take to get you to believe that you deserved to die for hte good of the country?

I think it was Anne Applebaums book on the gulags that in the late thirties during Stalin's purges it was intellectual Russians and the middle class who were deported to the gulags. When they got there they were preyed on by the criminal classes and guards with many of the women being raped and sexually assaulted and what little money and property they had, being stolen.

It was a lot different in 1945/46 when the trains going to Siberia and the Arctic were carrying German POW's, both Wehrmacht and Waffen SS, former Soviet POW's of the Germans whose only crime was to be captured, mainly because of Stalin's military incompetence in 1941/42, Soviet soldiers who had fallen foul of the system like Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and soldiers from the Polish Home Army the AKW. There were also a large number of both men and women from the Baltic States with about a third of their populations being sent to the Gulags.

All had been fighting each other at one time or another, but as soon as one of the criminals tried to molest one of the women, the whole group, German POW's, Polish and Soviet soldiers and the Baltic men joined together as one and went through the camp giving all the criminal gangs a huge kicking and doing over. Both the criminals and guards left the newcomers well alone after that.

I once spoke to a Russian women who had been a doctor in Moscow in the eighties. Her familly were intellectuals. She said that as a child she used to stay with her Latvian granny in Riga. Her granny used to have her ladies friends around for coffee. They would talk about spending ten to fifteen years in the gulags and never seeing their husbands and children again. Which is why the Baltic states are very nervous at the moment.

 

[Werewolf]

There was a short scene of a gulag somewhere, with a bunch of prisoners being shot one at a time. As the guard steps forward and aims the pistol, the prisoner shouts "Long live Comrade Stalin". Crack, thump, next prisoner, same thing. Gets to the next prisoner, who shouts "Long Live Comrade Stalin", to be told that Stalin was dead so the cry changed to "long live....."

If you take the time to read "the Gulag Archipelago", one thing that comes out is that a decent percentage of those who were executed for crimes against the party or the state, truly believed that they had failed by not being better comunists.

What must it take to get you to believe that you deserved to die for hte good of the country?

After that, the NKVD guard is about to shoot another victim when his oppo runs up and tells him that Beria has paused all executions...and the guard is so surprised he pulls the trigger anyway. The look on the face of the bloke who was next in line to be shot is priceless.

Near the beginning of the film, we see a young man informing on his father to the NKVD. The dad is arrested and sent to a gulag. Later in the film, Beria releases huge numbers of low-level prisoners, simply to make himself look better to the public,

Khruchev, "You're the good guy now? You locked up half the country!"

Beria, "Yes, and now I'm letting them go".

The young man is eating dinner with his mother when his father walks in. The mother is overjoyed at the return of her husband, while the son can only sit there awkwardly while his father glares at him.

It's small scenes like those that perfectly illustrate the insanity of the Soviet system.

 

[Themanwho]

Watched it again last night - excellent stuff, hilarious and horrifying at the same time.