Movie reviews

UKRAINA! FILM FESTIVAL ONLINE

The festival has been extended till the end of November. Below my penultimate movie. Now I'm dead knackered after a series of nearly sleepless nights and won't see the last one before tomorrow.

ПРОЩАННЯ ЗІ СТАЛІНИМ (STATE FUNERAL)

Watchable. Long but the sheer sight of staggering numbers of participants nails you to the screen. It also lets you experience what it was like to live under communism when organized mass public events were a rule and the scarcity of goods made everyone and everything look shabby. The documentary is monumental. Roughly 2.5 hours showing the announcement of the death - unexpectedly long and medically detailed - and the funeral spreading over several cities in a number of Soviet Republics. Shabby coats both of the common folks and of the dignitaries remind you of the post-war deprivation but also magnify the impression of equality people must have had at the time. Funnily, apart from delegates from countries like China, there were also representatives of a communist party from Britain. The coffin was red. Of course. The gigantic funeral makes you wonder how many of the attendees and organizers knew of the unspeakable crimes committed on the orders of the deceased. There's little sobbing. Most of the gathered listen and stare as if dumb. In one of the last speeches Beria warns of enemies of the state. But after that you hear a Russian lullaby played aloud which is moving and heart-warming, as if the dead was a little child. It's only in the written notice at the end that you hear of the 15 million who died of hunger and 27 million executed or tortured under Stalin's rule.