Funny and Brutal

Power in Joseph Stalin’s U.S.S.R. empire was based on his whims and the loyalty of his cabinet, men terrified of being purged without warning. Toadies all, they crawled and slithered around him, ready to do his bidding and enforce the terror of his rule. They certainly did not want to join the millions of people who had already died by his order.

You would not think this world of brutalism could be funny. Yet the demise of Stalin is the basis of the best comic movie so far this year, a film that will leave you laughing helplessly and in spite of yourself. Springing from the fertile imagination of Armando Iannucci, the British political satirist (HBO’s “Veep” and the stunning “In the Loop,” with its reminders of “Dr. Strangelove”) “The Death of Stalin” is adapted from a series of French graphic novels. 

 First join Iannucci in imagining a government run by lunatics (is this so hard in today’s world?), then go back to Moscow in 1953, when Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) holds his cabinet hostage to his every crazy thought and demand, even demanding they watch John Wayne movies. Many days he hands them a purge list — a political activist here, a writer there; even composers and orchestra conductors.

When Stalin dies suddenly —even his death throes are funny — his cabinet, men who have suppressed their ambition for years — begin jockeying for power. There is Communist Party secretary Nikita Khrushchev (Steve Buscemi), Central Committee member Vyacheslav Molotov (Michael Palin) and Stalin’s deputy, Georgy Malenkov (Jeffrey Tambor), who should be next in line. But the sly and brutal enforcer Laventri Beria (the great Shakespearean actor Simon Russell Beale) has already begun his plotting, savage and frightening, for power. Beale’s Beria is like Iago, achieving one betrayal after another. In a more traditional comedy, he might be the straight man foil to the bumbling antics of the others. But this is a tragicomedy, with dark, corrosive elements. Throughout the film, comedy is interrupted by violent outbursts.

Iannucci’s script often steps on marvelous jokes in its determination to remind us of the dangers of ignoring truth in the face of power. When power is based on whim and personal animosities, any ideology rests at best on shaky moral ground. Just watch Beria gleefully distributing death lists, then retracting them as the political winds shift. 

Through all this, Iannucci makes his characters human, even sympathetic, monsters though they may be. He knows nothing deflates pompous, unchecked power so well as barbed humor. The humor in “The Death of Stalin” is often uncomfortable — you may squirm through your laughter — but never gratuitous. This is comedy as a weapon of ideas, and it is more effective than bombs.

“The Death of Stalin” is in wide release.