THE INNER CIRCLE
A film review by Asya Kamsky
Copyright 1992 Asya Kamsky
THE INNER CIRCLE is a brilliant, beautiful work of art, shot entirely in the Soviet Union with three Western actors, a formerly Soviet director and a depiction of the bigger-than-life effect that Joseph Stalin had on an entire nation.
The film starts in 1939, when Ivan Sanchin becomes Stalin's personal projectionist, and his communal apartment-mates, the Gubermanns become a statistic in Stalin's infamous purges. The film follows Sanchin's devotion to Stalin as paralleled by that of almost every Soviet.
Tom Hulce as Sanchin is brilliant. Lolita Davidovich as his wife Nastya is heart-breakingly believable. Bob Hoskins as Beria is down-right chilling. The cast of Russian actors is equally impressive, especially the actress who plays Katya Gubermann as a teenager.
Several notes about the accuracy of the film. The actors portraying the big names of Soviet politics are phenomenal in their resemblance to their subjects. Since the film is shot in Russia, the atmosphere is perfect, especially in the Kremlin scenes, as well as in the run-down apartment that Sanchin and his wife live in. The time-line is off by a couple of years -- the arrests such as the Gubermanns took place in 1937 not 1939. And while the film is loosely based on memoirs of the man that Sanchin's character is based on, that man himself, living in Moscow, still thinks that Stalin was a god.
This film has been playing in New York City for a while, and just opened in San Francisco. I don't know how wide a release it will get, but I would recommend this film to anyone within twenty miles of where it's playing, at full prices.
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