The Death of Stalin

 Year of Release:  2017

Director:  Armando Iannucci

Screenplay:  Armando Iannucci, David Schneider and Ian Martin, from a screenplay by Fabian Nury and based on the graphic novel La Mort de Staline by Fabian Nury and Thierry Roin

Starring:  Steve Buscemi, Simon Russell Beale, Jeffrey Tambor, Paddy Considine, Rupert Friend, Jason Isaacs, Olga Kurylenko, Michael Palin, Andrea Riseborough, Paul Whitehouse

Running Time;  105 minutes

Genre:  Satire, comedy

The Soviet Union, 1953:  The country is in the grip of Premier Joseph Stalin (Adrian McLoughlin) and his Central Committee, who themselves constantly live in fear of getting on the wrong side of Stalin.  When Staline suffers a cerebral haemorrhage and dies, the Central Committee is thrown into turmoil, as each member plots, schemes and manipulates their way to the centre of power.

Scottish writer, director and satirist Armando Iannucci has made a name for himself poking fun at the dark absurdities of British and American politics with his TV shows such as The Day Today (1994), The Saturday Night Armistice (1995-1999), The Thick of It (2005-2012) and Veep (2012-2019).  Here he turns his satirical gaze on the much darker historical absurdity of the Stalinist-era Soviet Union.  It depicts a world of absurd paranoia.  The film opens with Stalin ordering a recording of a concert, which hadn't been recorded, and so the orchestra and audience have to be hurriedly pulled back and the whole thing remounted.  Every evening Vyacheslav Molotov (played by ex-Monty Python member Michael Palin) gets his wife to list down everything he has said in Stalin's presence and note down which got good reactions and which didn't.  Following Stalin's death, there's a vying for power, while his funeral is prepared.  The comedy comes from the resulting backbiting, alliances and treachery, as well as the fact that whenever there is a big event to be organised, whatever can go wrong will go wrong.  There is also the fact that these characters are constantly in danger for their lives, the wrong word could get you name on a list which would mean death.  The threat of prison, torture and execution is constant throughout the film, but it doesn't really go to much into the atrocities of the Stalin regime.  It's. clever film, which is consistently amusing, although more witty than laugh out loud funny, and often the darkness drowns out the humour.  It also features a great cast of familiar comedy faces at the top of their game, each one of which has their chance to shine,         

The Death of Stalin

24 Hour Party People

Year of Release:  2002
Director:  Michael Winterbottom
Screenplay:  Frank Cottrell Boyce
Starring:  Steve Coogan, Paddy Considine, Danny Cunningham, Shirley Henderson, Lennie James, Sean Harris, Andy Serkis, John Simm 
Running Time:  117 minutes
Genre:  Comedy, drama, music

Manchester, England, 1976:  Tony Wilson (Coogan), reporter for local news show Granada Reports and music show So It Goes, is inspired, after seeing a Sex Pistols gig, to open a showcase for local, unsigned bands.  Wilson's "Factory Nights" are a huge success, and he subsequently starts his own label, Factory Records.  Despite making a huge splash with the legendary group Joy Division and, later, the brilliant, but mercurial, Happy Mondays, as well as their own nightclub, The Hacienda, Wilson and his friends soon realise that the wild nights can produce some devastating morning afters.

This is the cinematic equivalent of a great night out:  Funny, wild, scrappy, sometimes weird, sometimes emotional, and leaving you blinking at the cold grey light of dawn.  I was kind of too young for the whole "Madchester" of the late '80s and early '90s but I do remember it being a thing, and I knew people who were really into it, also my Dad is from Manchester, so I enjoyed the film's celebration of the city.  The film is a heady mix of drama, documentary, comedy, music video and surrealism which doesn't as much break the fourth wall as throw a sledgehammer at it.  In one scene one of the real people depicted in the film cameos to dispute the film's version of events.  The film even breaks it's story to list some of the people who cameo in the film, including one whose scene was cut but, as the narration states, "I'm sure it'll be on the DVD" (I've seen the DVD and it is).  The film is certainly messy (the tragic real life suicide of Ian Curtis, although played respectfully in the film, feels at odds with the goofy comedy surrounding it).  Steve Coogan channels more than a little of his Alan Partridge character as Tony Wilson, a talented man who is so unapologetically and full-bloodedly a complete arse, that he becomes almost kind of heroic in a weird way.  Otherwise, the film is full of famous, or soon to be famous British stars, including Andy Serkis and Simon Pegg. I love music, but I'm not really a big music person and don't know a lot about it, however I loved this film.  It makes me feel a little nostalgic for the wild nights out and dazy, hazy mornings.   

Lennie James, Shirley Henderson and Steve Coogan are 24 Hour Party People