![]() ![]() Weirdly, even the end credits manage to have an element of this - various shots from the film are presented as old photographs which then slowly become doctored with people's faces scratched out, Beria being replaced by a Soviet flag, people fully removed from the picture, and so on.Mercifully, this never happened in real life. One of the NKVD members nonchalantly blows his comrade's brains out for no apparent reason. All those people liquidated simply because they were inconvenient. The round-up/massacre of the staff at Stalin's dacha.The NKVD massacring those attempting to enter Moscow is one of the few moments of violence which is played for genuine terror and without any hint of Black Comedy, and the Presidium (all of them) are far more concerned with finding someone besides themselves to blame for it rather than displaying any real concern for the victims. The subsequent riot and reaction of the Presidium as a result of this move is also quite disturbing.Let's see how Beria's goons cope with that. Khrushchev: New security orders: restart the trains. When Georgy Malenkov expresses his desire to have Beria given a fair trial, Khrushchev is having none of it, as he knows just what Beria will do if he somehow manages to escape his fate.I thank the union for bringing me so many devoted wives who fuck like sewing machines." When his aide comments that the man's wife would do anything to get him released, Beria sneers, "Yeah, and she did everything. He tells him to loudly torture the man's wife where he can clearly hear her to get him to talk. When Beria rushes to the dacha after Stalin's collapse, he's giving instructions to an aide about how to get a confession out of a prisoner.There's one particular scene that opens with him staring down the audience in an interrogation room with a big grin on his face, looming over the audience and being generally unnerving.And he was even worse in real life if you can believe that. All in all, a power-hungry and very despicable person. Head of the NKVD, Stalin's personal executioner who he called "his Heinrich Himmler", a serial rapist. It shows the lengths that people will go to make sure they stay within the dear leader's good graces. Once he gets home, Khrushchev begins listing off all of the jokes he made during the night with Stalin, and most importantly, detailing whether Stalin laughed or not.One's fate in the Soviet Union is dependent entirely on the whims of Stalin, no matter how high up they are and his good mood is all that stands between them and the gulag or a bullet. Beria mentions offhand that he's on the list of enemies. And then there's Molotov, a man who is unquestionably loyal to Stalin, even after he ordered his wife's arrest.If it hadn't been for Beria distracting him with a prank on Khrushchev, Malenkov might not have lived past the night. The very second he brings the topic up, the room goes deathly silent and Stalin fixes Malenkov with a Death Glare and asks in a dangerously soft voice if he really wants to know about what happened to Polnikov. During a party, where everyone is drinking and joking around, Georgy Malenkov accidentally wonders aloud what happened to Polnikov, someone who Stalin had liquidated. Even Stalin's inner circle are not safe from him.They're a couple, aren't they?" And he says this with a smile on his face. And when Beria asks about the writer's wife, Stalin answers, "On. ![]() One of them is a writer whose work Stalin likes, but he decides to keep him on. The very first scene he's in, Beria is showing him a list of people marked for arrest. Excessive applause actually became a problem, to the point that a bell would be sounded indicating the audience should be quiet. Even something as mundane as loud and long rounds of applause becomes rather scary, since NKVD agents are in the room and watching everybody, indicating that the first person to stop clapping will be arrested note And yes, this is Truth in Television.Look closely at the young man who denounced his father at the beginning - he's remarked to be cooperative, but he seems frightened and there are wounds/scrapes on his face.It's mostly Played For Black Comedy, but seeing so many people offering to name names and blaming others for their "crimes", as well as always thinking they're under some kind of surveillance, is pretty frightening.Life in Stalin's Russia is not presented as a very nice place, particularly the prospect of people coming for you in the middle of the night. ![]()
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