The Story
The hero of Andrei Konchalovsky's film, "The Inner Circle,"
is a study in political naivete. To Ivan Sanshin (Tom Hulce),
the leaders of his country are lofty supermen, residing in
their own astral sanctum of revolutionary thought. Josef
Stalin, in particular, is like a god; just to get a glimpse
of him, in dark profile, as he knifes through the streets in
his limo, is an epiphany. There he is, the man himself, the
prime mover! Then, on the night of his marriage to the
stalwart Anastasia (Lolita Davidovich), Ivan hears a knock
on the door of his cramped basement apartment.
Reeking of vodka, he opens it and finds himself face to face
with a pair of KGB agents who, without explanation, cart him
off into the Moscow night. That same evening agents had
burst into his neighbors' apartment with dire results, and
Ivan expects a similar fate, though he can't imagine what he
has done wrong. A simple movie projectionist and devoted
party member, he never so much as thinks a subversive
thought. Still, jammed between the two agents, he is nearly
green with fear. But Ivan hasn't been targeted for
elimination in one of Stalin's purges. The KGB has a job
for him.
Stalin's projectionist has 'fallen ill', and they want Ivan
to take his place running the screening room where Stalin
and his high command unwind in the evening with a film.
There they are, the entire Politburo, including Comrade
Beria, who controls the KGB, Vorshilov, Minister of Defense,
Molotov the Foreign Minister, and, dressed in his
chocolate-brown uniform and knee boots, Stalin himself.
Ivan can barely keep from passing out.
Set between 1939 and 1953, before the full extent of the
Stalinist atrocities was widely known, "The Inner Circle" is
Konchalovsky's attempt to blow the lid off the myth of
Stalin and show the grim realities that lay beneath the
lies. However, it's not 1939 anymore, and the ugly facts of
Soviet history the director has "exposed" have long been on
the record. His revelations, unfortunately, turn out to be
yesterday's news.
But isn't this blaming the victim? What, after all, were
his alternatives?
