THE INNER CIRCLE
A film review by Frank Maloney
Copyright 1992 Frank Maloney
THE INNER CIRCLE is a film by Andrei Konchalovsky, based on a true story. The film stars Tom Hulce and Lolita Davidovich. Rated PG-13, due to violence, subject matter. Filmed in the Kremlin.
THE INNER CIRCLE is the story of Ivan Sanshin (Tom Hulce), who almost randomly becomes Stalin's personal projectionist, and his wife, Anastasia (Lolita Davidovich). Both are naive peasants transported to Thirties' Moscow, where they share a basement apartment with seven other people. Ivan worships the Minister of Defense, "the first Red soldier," and Anastasia worships Ivan, her new husband. Gradually, he moves into the Inner Circle around Stalin (played by Russian actor Alexandre Zbruev in letter-perfect makeup). He begins to accrue the benefits of the elite, but must keep his employment a secret even from Anastasia.
Privilege comes at an enormous cost to both ideals and personal lives. Anastasia wants to adopt the orphaned daughter of "Enemies of the State," who are Jewish to boot; such an association could mean his own death, and at a minimum exposes him to sinister KGB influences. Other, worse conflicts and disaster await the hapless Sanshins.
At one point Anastasia asks Ivan, "Who do you love more, me or Comrade Stalin?" Without missing a beat or a thought, Ivan replies, "Comrade Stalin, of course." The film has occasion to return to this dialog with no small amount of irony later on, as the Sanshins explore together and separately the real meaning of Ivan's answer.
The story follows Ivan until 1953, the day of Stalin's funeral. Fifteen hundred mourners died that day in the crush and Ivan finds something else to believe in beside his Master.
Andre Konchalovsky is a Russian director who came to the United States in the Seventies. In this country, he's had his ups and downs (RUNAWAY TRAIN and TANGO & CASH), but it was in Russia that he did his best work, such as the 1979 epic SIBERIADE. THE INNER CIRCLE must rank with his best work in either country. The movie was filmed mostly last summer before the coup d'etat became the coup de grace for the Soviet state. Konchalovsky was given access to the Kremlin and the KGB headquarters. He recreates the flavor of the Stalinist years partly by the unceasing contrast between the shoddy lives of the people with tsaristic splendors of the lives of the elite; he also makes us feel the terror and underlying fear that pervaded the lives of almost all, including elites.
One who seems above it all was the KGB chief Beria, played by Bob Hoskins. Hoskins uses his natural cuteness, which as spoiled some other recent appearances, to great advantage here to suggest the charming ruthlessness of the little man with owlish glasses who nearly replaced his Master (Beria was executed for treason by the other members of the top rung a few months after Stalin's death to forestall Beria's ambitions and his enormous power). Beria seems to spend most of his time grinning at a secret and watching the others condemn themselves.
The first acting honors inevitably must go to Tom Hulce, who uses of little of his AMADEUS zaniness to make Ivan sweet, naive, tragic, cruel without meaning to be, forgiving, loving, torn, a complex peasant who loves to watch the cows being herded past his bedroom window on their way to the slaughterhouse. The early where Ivan demonstrates his mastery of the film projector is a stand-alone masterpiece of the charm of showing off.
But one ought also to recognize the impressive job of work turned in by Lolita Davidovich, who impressed me enormously in BLAZE, a film made interesting by her presence. In an odd way, Anastasia is a little like the young Blaze Starr, a country girl who never entirely leaves her country roots behind and whose life is dependent on how well she can manipulate the men who manipulate her; Blaze succeeds to some extent, Anastasia fails tragically.
One thing I have a problem with is the actors' Slavic accents. If we are to pretend that they are speaking Russian, why do they have Russian accents? Would they sound as accent-free as native speakers sound to each other? And if they must speak English with heavy Russian accents, why can't they do it consistently? Hulce and Davidovich both suffer from occasional lapses, and make this particular movie convention all the more obviously dubious.
I should also mention the work of Bess Meyer as the grown up Katya, the little girl that Anastasia wanted to adopt. Katya grew up in a state orphanage and is completely inculcated in the cult of her parents' murderer. She faces a dubious future as the child of Enemies of the People, as a Jew, and a frail young woman with a suspicious and persistent cough. She appears at the end of the film and makes a most memorable job of her relatively small part.
The final irony is the real Ivan, Alexander Ganshin, is a vigorous man in his eighties, still living in Moscow, and still utterly devoted to his long-dead, long-discredited Master.
THE INNER CIRCLE is an important film, which I can urge you to seek out and see whatever you have to pay. I don't know how widely it is being distributed (in the Seattle area, it is showing exclusively at the Harvard Exit), but I suspect that initially, at least, you will need to hunt it up. Do so.
(THE INNER CIRCLE was selected to be the opening film of the Berlin Film Festival, by the way.)
-- Frank Richard Aloysius Jude Maloney .
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