Skip to main content

Stalin's Wife

By

Zhena Stalina is an ambitious four-part television series that attempts to convey the agonizing position Nadezhda Allilueva found herself in when she married Josef Stalin.  The writers took their cue from a 2004 documentary by Slava Tsukerman, drawing on even more archival material to piece together a very intimate account of this marriage.  The series does lack emotional intensity, which Jamie Miller notes in his review for Kinokultura, with Duta Skhirtladze giving a rather subdued performance as Stalin.  But, then this film is principally about Nadezhda, and Olga Budina turns in a powerful performance as Stalin's wife.

I don't know that much about Allilueva, so I can't say how accurate the telling is.  It appears to be more an emotional "truth" that the director is aiming for in justifying the fateful decision she would ultimately make.  We see her provide understanding and love for Stalin's son from a previous marriage, shown in this film clip, and try to guard their two children from his tyrannical outbursts, only to feel the full weight of his anger.  One senses the same love-hate relationship one finds in most abusive marriages but with far more profound consequences, as Nadezhda has her broader family to think about in the wake of her husband's reign of terror. 

The filmmakers decide to treat Stalin's terror on the periphery, with pointed references rather than any attempt to explain his actions.  Instead, the series focuses on Nadezhda's reactions to the growing list of crimes against humanity her husband is perpetrating, and her attempts to reconcile this with the image she stills holds of "Soso" as the idealistic revolutionary she first met in 1917.  As a result, this film becomes very domestic and probably won't appeal to viewers looking for pithy insights into Stalin's character.  It is Olga Budina's strong performance that holds the viewer.

Budina had previously played Aglaya Yepachina in the television series, The Idiot. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ward No. 6

By
Ward No. 6 is a short story written by Chekhov in 1892.  It has appeared in various collections of Chekhov short stories, including The Horse-Stealers and Other Stories translated by Constance Garnett in 1921.  In this story, Chekhov explores the inner working of a run-down lunatic asylum in a provincial town.  He  introduces the readers to a coarse porter who speaks mostly with his fists, various patients, a doctor who presides over this ward, and expresses his thoughts with a local postmaster.  It was recently made into a movie , featuring Vladimir Ilyin.  Here's a clip . There's also this very recent short film (30 min.) by Suzana Purkovic, with English subtitles.
17 comments
Read more

Light and Dark

By
I'm still trying to sort out the ending.  The story had to end tragically but was surprised that Rogozhin actually sought forgiveness in Myshkin after what he had done to Nastya, although I think that Dostoevsky intended the two to be read as one, along similar lines as The Double .  He kept Rogozhin a shadowy figure throughout the novel, ever lurking in the dark of the Prince's soul.  Try as he might, Prince Myshkin could not alter events and thus the fantasy world he had lived in upon returning to Russia crumbled before his eyes, leaving him at a total loss as how to reconcile himself with it. Once again, Dostoevsky plumbs great depths of the human soul.  This is a psychological drama told in theatrical terms, perfectly suited for the stage.  Characters appear and disappear as if moving from the shadows of the stage.  I can see the "green bench" as the central stage piece.  In the final part, one gets the sense that Lebedev is orchestrating event...
12 comments
Read more

The Morning of Our Motherland

By
I was watching a History channel special on Socialist Realism art of the Soviet Union and this was one of the grand canvases that is now stuffed away in the Tretyakov State Gallery .  The painter was Fyodor Shurpin and he had a wonderful eye for detail, right down to the secret service black car on the road to Stalin's right.  To the left, one sees a row of combines turning over the field of golden wheat, which became symbolic of Stalin's Soviet Union.  Утро нашей Родины is from 1949, with Stalin radiating a post-war confidence.  It is also known as  Dawn of our Fatherland and other titles. Shurpin was one of the better artists to carry over from the pre-war years.  The narrator pointed out how socialist realist art changed dramatically as a result of the war, becoming much more static and propagandist in appearance.  He pointed to two stops along the Moscow subway as an example of this divide.  Here, Shurpin essentially transposes Stalin fo...
Post a Comment
Read more