I watched the movie “State Funeral”. I started watching this movie and couldn’t stop watching it. Not because I am a lover of such situations and such a presentation that I love mourning symbols and positively evaluate the activity of the hero of this picture. But this is the only historical chronicle in which I could see dozens and hundreds of faces of ordinary people, often close-up, with all the attributes (like clothes passing cars) of the time, and in such a quality as if it had been filmed a few days ago. I felt very clearly that at best I could see these people only as grandparents, or on tombstones, or in some staged photos, and here, suddenly, I see people of different ages, and they are just like us, exactly the same. If it weren’t for the clothes, the time, I would never have guessed that they were people of another time. There were so many faces that you could fall in love 10 times. And the faces of the elderly to see as impressive as the young, because they even I could not find the old, or only as very bent and wrinkled, changed unrecognizably. It seems that up to this point, I did not completely believe that what was 50 - 70 years ago was in fact - in everyday life it is perceived as a legend that has always existed.
It didn’t matter what happened on the screen. Of course, you won’t see any other emotions here than sadness or indifference, and most participants don’t say anything. I would certainly like to see these people in a different setting, in a different setting, to see how they talk, what they really think. But it turns out that in such circumstances you can see a lot ... I think in the whole picture, I noticed two smiles, a man, and most likely this smile was not because of the death of the leader, but ordinary, natural, they just forgot that they are filmed and can see. Once it was a girl who was walking in the crowd and was filmed close-up, she smiled at the camera, and immediately, as if coming to her senses, turned her face in someone’s back. Another time, it was a soldier who was filmed from afar, and he was smiling, apparently to some joke, he didn't see that he was being filmed, so he behaved naturally. This moment showed that even at such moments, people involved in this process could think and talk about something else.
The faces of public figures make no less impression. You see Vasily Stalin as a participant in yesterday’s newscast. In close-up, a colored, almost natural image, looks very clear, and you clearly feel all his emotions. It seems to you that he recently sat at his father’s grave like this, and you see how he breathes, how his head is tilted.
We can hear loud speeches of ordinary people only in the form of their tribute to Stalin. It is very little to get to know these people, but it is very much to feel the spirit of the era. What is more in these speeches: necessary formalism or sincere pathos? It's hard to say... But these speeches are even more vivid than those I heard from the Brezhnev era. One worker speaks his words without looking down at the piece of paper, very strongly, even if insincerely, it makes a lot of sense. When I first saw these clips from the trailer, I thought it was a production made in our time. Not because something is wrong, but just the sense of reality of these people is created such that you are not used to relate to such a distant time.
This film looks like some kind of art house, but from which it is impossible to break away. It has a plot, a setup, even something like dialogue, but there are definitely monologues, there is a climax, there are central characters who play without even moving, even the frequency of breathing and the vibrations of the human body here become plot significant. Despite the common mournful emotion of all people, not only do everyone have different faces, but the facial expressions are different, each person treats it completely differently, and you begin to notice the slightest shades in facial expressions.
There is also the sobriety of the common people. Well, not everything, and not as theatrical as in North Korea, but you see a number of crying women, you see a man in middle years, who suddenly does not restrain sobbing. In general, for that time it is perceived normal. 8 years after the war, the absolute monopoly of one person on mass information, and it is not surprising that many and adequate people can quite consciously and sincerely perceive Stalin as a native. And most importantly, millions of people really could not know anything about the scale of the repressions and the role of Stalin in them. A huge number of people died from Stalin’s direct instructions, but many were bypassed. I absolutely believe my grandfather and my grandmother that they knew nothing about it. Since my grandmother with her 4-grade education, working at the factory since the age of 13, could not know anything about the Gulag and 1937, and my grandfather, who at the time of the Greater Terror was just graduating from school, could hardly imagine what processes were happening throughout the country. Therefore, to draw conclusions from these films that all these people who were tortured, killed, all of them have repressed relatives, and they still cry at the grave of their tormentor is wrong to draw such a conclusion. I have an absolutely negative attitude towards Stalin without any reservations, but everything was much more complicated than it is in the minds of people with a liberal worldview and people with left views. Rokossovsky’s sincere experiences at Stalin’s funeral are not evidence of his admiration for the Great Terror. Just as the depressed state of Vasily Stalin is primarily the emotions of a person who has lost his real father.
The only one who gives a sincere speech about Stalin is Molotov. He hardly restrains sobs, for a moment his voice breaks. Yes, despite the fact that Stalin imprisoned his wife, Molotov, apparently, really respected Stalin, and believed in the correctness of both terror and all the policies that he pursued with Stalin.
And yet, with all our minds now, this action introduces into some pathosy, sincere delight, gives insane energy. Workers' speeches inspire enthusiasm. You start to believe that these people can build communism... if they have Stalin. Learn to do something without Stalin.
10 out of 10
As much as I would not like to mix art with politics, but a full look at this work will not work without it. The director of the film Sergey Loznitsa can not be suspected of sympathy for the Soviet project of state structure. According to numerous interviews with these liberal news publishers, it can be concluded that liberal views are much closer to Sergey, and like every self-respecting liberal, Stalin’s years of rule are estimated by him as totalitarian and bloody (as we will be told at the very end of the picture).
Now about the film, the film consists of an edited documentary chronicle shot by directors Sergei Gerasimov, Ilya Kopalin, Mikhail Chiaureli, Grigory Alexandrov for work on the 1953 film The Great Farewell. For three months, shots were selected from more than 30 hours of the archive of Gosteleradio. It took another four months to direct the film.
The picture is structured very competently, the development is progressive, here we see how the coffin with the deceased is entered into the Column Hall of the House of Unions, then through the geographical diversity we show the scale of the event, then the significance of the event is reinforced by the arrival of many foreign delegations. Huge streams of people on the streets of Moscow are lining up in a desire to say goodbye to the head of state. Their faces are tragic and sad, many hardly hold back tears. Whether it was a staging of tragedy or people sincerely grieved for the loss, everyone will decide for himself. I didn’t want to use candid footage that shows sobs because they start to destroy everything. There are such shots in the material, and it is not clear whether this is acting. I don't believe that. I have spoken to a large number of people who remember this time, and many of them have a sincere sense of frenzy. I wanted to convey that emotion. I would like to note that almost all the people shown in the chronicle experienced the hardships of the Second World War, which ended not so long ago. And not only the war, but the difficult pre-war years of preparation for this very war. They had no illusions about Nazi Germany’s plans for their land and for themselves. Looking at the attitude of people towards Stalin through the prism of understanding these issues, the idea of the cadres’ appearance is completely eliminated from me. A lot to understand the situation is told by the footage of the weeping marshal of the Soviet Union Konstantin Rokossovsky, who, by the way, in the difficult 37 year, also fell under charges of espionage and was under investigation, and at the time of 53 years is the Minister of Defense of Poland. There is much to think about, watching the cadres of clergymen who, as a sign of respect, are not baptized before the grave with Stalin, but bow. In the development of the film, we see rallies and demonstrations taking place throughout the country. In general, viewing the faces of different people who came to the funeral and the emotions expressed by them is addictive.
In the final part of the film, we see footage of how the coffin is taken out of the building of the House of Unions, the column moves in the direction of the mausoleum on Red Square, passing along Marx Avenue (now Moss) and through Manege Square. Ahead of the column are the marshals of the Soviet Union Budyon, Shaposhnikov, Konev, and others. Near the coffin, you can see Khrushchev and Beria, a very subtle moment can be seen between them: Beria goes ahead behind him Khrushchev, Beria wraps and with a sharp gesture of hand shows Khrushchev to walk on his left hand from him, he immediately takes his place. It is interesting that in a few months Beria will be shot on charges of treason and espionage. The next part of the film is the most boring and drawn-out, it is the speeches of Malenkov, Khrushchev and Beria. Stretching these shots, the director, I think, wanted to show the emasculation of the ideas of communism, which we can define by our after-knowledge. And indeed, these speeches sound monotonous and dogmatic.
And now we see the final shots of the film in which the director considered it necessary to frame with wreaths near the mausoleum and the sad faces of people who are there, substitute the song “Lullaby Son”. What does the author say by that? Perhaps this is a witty reference to the famous nickname of Stalin as the Father of the Nations. Sergey found an opportunity for this in my opinion inappropriate song to express his attitude to what was happening. Well, like any modern Russian film, this film cannot but throw a stone into the garden of our Soviet history, namely, on the screen we see a text informing us that according to some historical research during the reign of Stalin, 27 million people were killed, tortured (?) and exiled to the Gulag, this is not counting 15 million starved. Of course, they do not give us any references to “historical research”, thanks for this, or they could also refer to Solzhenitsyn’s historical research. According to them, one can count either 70 or 100 million victims of Stalinism, who have enough audacity for what. What was it shown for? In my opinion, the answer is obvious, such a view of the Stalin era is an obligatory attribute of a person who wants to join the circle of both domestic and European intellectuals. It's like an entrance ticket or a pass. In my opinion, the artistic meaning of this message is absent, but the ideological message is clear. Millions of people have lost their identity so much that they cry for the tyrant who has brought them so much misery. I will not dispute this, just note that a similar message was sent to the viewer. Would the participants of this picture agree with this statement of the question?
Conclusions. And the main conclusion is that Sergey Loznitsa is a talent of documentary films (unlike his weak work in feature films in my opinion), which confirms once again. And whatever ideological view the author tries to convey, the faces of the people shown in the film will tell us much more. The sadness of the tragedy is read on people’s faces. I caught myself thinking that few of the rulers of the state would be equally sincerely weeping for both a military marshal and a simple worker.
Interesting to see this historical film ' Farewell to Stalin' thinking descendants who know about this time firsthand. They receive different information and completely opposite assessments, both in art - in books, in movies, and from the stories of their older relatives. The same ambivalent feeling and feeling causes the picture. On the one hand, the devotional love of the whole people for the great leader, the father of the nation. To the coffin were allowed ordinary people, in work clothes, representatives of different professions, the military, the intelligentsia. They came from all the cities to say goodbye, from all the republics and all the socialist camp. On the other hand, people can see surprise, sympathy, fear and liberation at the same time. Many families were affected by repression and death, the shooting of innocent people. Before the funeral of the Generalissimo already managed to engraved, add the inscription above the entrance to the mausoleum ' Everywhere we hear the context of Lenin - Stalin, the successor, builder of communism.
But it is amazing how the director Sergey Loznitsa, having edited several documentary films, was able to put the unifying text of the announcer in the modern spirit of the time. The words 'democracy', 'socialist homeland', 'communism everywhere'. A little time will pass, and like a cold shower, people will talk about the cult of personality and the time of the great terror. And the authorities themselves admit it. When even to the dying leader, associates could not find professional doctors, after the sensational case of a conspiracy of doctors.
Sergey Loznitsa’s film Farewell to Stalin (2019) is remarkable for being composed entirely of archival chronicles. The role of the director was reduced to the editing and selection of sound design, conveying the solemnity of the action (the mourning music of Mozart and Chopin sounds, at the very end - the touching "Lullaby" performed by S. Lemeshev).
The picture looks very unusual: on the one hand, documentary evidence before us, on the other hand, before the final credits (where it is sparingly said about the millions of victims of terror) does not let go of the impression of theatricality of the action, and it seems that the director wanted to convey this in the film: how the whole country in every point - on the ground, under the ground and in the air, in the mountains and taiga, on land and on the water, in villages and cities - plays out grief in a single impulse. Women and men of all ages, all nationalities (Chukchi, Uzbeks, Latvians, etc.), all professions and classes (peasants, workers, military, intellectuals, even clergy) are grieving. In all points of the vast Motherland there are mourning processions and rallies with mountains of wreaths, flowers (poor people carry flowers in pots to the memorial from excess of feelings) and portraits of the beloved leader, hastily composed mournful and bravura odes. The heaviest sight is the endless dense stream of people passing through the Column Hall. While the legs go, people's faces are motionless, fascinated by the coffin, almost disappeared in the rubble of wreaths. On black and white film, it is completely indistinguishable. But the black and white picture, in which there are so many mournful faces and white flags, is replaced now and then by color – and then we see not the faces, but that around them and behind them – a lot of poisonous red flowers, wreaths, ribbons.
It is difficult to say, looking at this grandiose performance, whether people’s feelings are genuine – they themselves, perhaps, do not know, but play inspiredly, feeling the importance of what is happening around them. Some cry, others barely hide their curiosity - there are no indifferent here. Only on the faces of very young children, sometimes flashing in the crowd, there is a noticeable bewilderment and effort to understand what is happening. By the middle of the film, the grinding of mournful faces becomes physically stuffy (as in some "Hard to be a god" by A. Herman), you want to get into the air. But now, finally, comes the time of the funeral, and the action turns from lush theater into ritual and religious. From the roof of the Mausoleum, where the body of Stalin should be brought (the name of the leader has already been stamped on the facade along with Lenin), the speeches of party priests sound on duty. In contrast to the living faces of the people, the rulers seem completely dead, empty, wooden. Not a single human feeling on Beria’s face; sick of Malenkov’s smug appearance; perhaps something human slips only in Molotov’s voice. Then, under the volleys of cannons and howls of locomotives, the whole country freezes in a solemn moment of silence: in factories, at sea, in the remote taiga, in cities and villages, everyone freezes in religious and mystical trembling. In the sky, in complete silence, staggering in the wind and creaking chains, a huge portrait of Stalin slowly floats by. Finally, he also freezes: crane-makers descend to the ground and become the mourners.
This minute lasts forever, because it is not that which lasts long, but that which has no end. The main philosophical question of the film is: when will this minute end? When will the triumph of evil cease: death, humiliation, injustice, poverty? Very carefully, very slowly and scrupulously examines the faces of the grieving director: who are these people? These wretched, tired, early aged people in balecks and boots, overcoats and headscarves, whose poverty is even more obvious in comparison with the exquisite pots, berets, doubles of “foreign guests”. Many of them look like martyrs, their grief is sublime, others seem to have gone into themselves - and you do not know whether they are grieving for a dictator or their grief - but they are all alive, that is what they cannot hide even in the moment of complete fading, that is what angers even a dead bloodsucker. What is required of us in this everlasting dead minute (the dead loop of time), the moment when the murderer triumphs? So that we pretend to be dead, and we try our best: we are not there when we are deprived of the last, tortured and shot by our neighbors; we are not, even if we are at parades and funerals. Perhaps it will also be possible to dissolve in some deadly statistics of thousands of denunciations or millions of victims, to get lost in the memory book, as if we never existed and we were not involved, and only a chronicle or surveillance cameras will tell posterity that in fact we were alive.
It was hardly surprising that the Netherlands/Lithuania and the Ukrainian director decided to display such an epochal event as a farewell to the leader of the peoples. Did the wind of history start to change direction... and not? I looked around and everything fell into place.
Of course, dear spectator, you will be saturated with footage of newsreels, but where did the mourning demonstrations in Europe (Prague, Budapest, Bucharest Sofia), where hundreds of thousands of mourners disappeared in Beijing Square, where the anthem of the USSR, military equipment, covering the sky planes and giving the last military honors to the leader of the army. All these attributes of the power and influence of the Soviet power of that time were cut out of the film.
The movie was long enough to fit everything. But it was not a comprehensive review that the director wanted to create. No, we observe the event through his personal prism of course - cold, gray, despondency, illiterate people striving for false goals that are doomed to failure. That's what they're poking at us. Of course, in the end, they will talk about Stalin’s repressions, which certainly happened, but we came to say goodbye. Half-truths are worse than lies.
It is surprising that the documentary chronicle, which is directly related to the history of Soviet statehood, whose successor is modern Russia, is engaged in an emigrant with pronounced oppositional views - documentary director Sergei Loznitsa. And he does it impartially, for which I thank him. It would seem that so much material to study important moments in the history of your own state, take – I do not want. Instead, public money is spent on art projects of dubious quality.
For Loznitsa "Farewell to Stalin" is not the first work with the Soviet documentary chronicle. He already had a "Blockade" assembled from the cadres of besieged Leningrad, "Representation" consisting of the ritualistic and macabrian life of Soviet citizens, a judicial "Process" on the case of the Communist Party. However, Farewell to Stalin is definitely the most ambitious and impressive documentary project of the director. As large-scale and impressive as the cult of the personality of the Soviet leader.
The film conveys a powerful ideological impulse, captured in countless speeches, songs, faces overshadowed by deep sorrow. The power of this impulse cannot be overstated, for it still echoes in the minds of many people.
The chronicle covers the most remote corners of the vast territory of the USSR, showing the full involvement of the entire multinational diversity of the country in the funeral ritual. It is interesting to watch mourning demonstrations in countries that have finally broken with their Soviet past – in Poland, in western Ukraine, in the Baltics.
The faces of many politicians of that time are shown. There are speeches by Beria, Malenkov and representatives of the Soviet proletariat. Soviet songs are replaced by Chopin’s mourning march, and Mozart’s Lacrimosa is reproduced several times.
The sacred ritual reaches its climax at the moment of thunder of cannon shots. People freeze, time seems to stop and only the portrait of Stalin slowly floats through the sky. Behind the catharsis comes a kind of discharge to the accompaniment "Lullaby"Matvey Blanter with contrasting gentle epithets. Perhaps, the soundtrack is the only author's statement that allows itself Loznitsa.
"Farewell to Stalin" is a hypnotic and fascinating documentary chronicle, which by its grandeur eclipses humorous pamphlets like "Death of Stalin"Iannucci. Sergey Loznitsa created a film document significant for history and, most importantly, opened access to it to a wide audience.