Funérailles d'État

2+ hours archive footage of people from all over USSR gathering in town squares to either hear the news of Stalin's passing or going to see his corpse at the Unions building. Nothing else happens. Doesn't mean it's bad. Or good. Just saying.

I wasn't sure whether I wanted a narrator or not here, as we follow the activities of the days immediately following the death of Joseph Stalin in March 1953. A commentary might have helped me appreciate just who was whom as a procession of dignitaries from home and abroad, but the lack of that and the reliance on the public address announcements did work really effectively at illustrating the esteem in which this man was held - or, certainly, the esteem in which the Communist party wanted him to be held. What we see for the next two hours is an astonishing testament of the archivists arts as both monochrome and colour footage is used to show us just how extensive the mourning was and how grand the funeral ceremony looked as Messrs. Malenkov, Molotov and Beria (along with a fair smattering of the Patriarchy) tried to outdo each other with honorific superlatives as they imbued the deceased with an almost super-human degree of brilliance, vision and dedication to his country and it's Leninist-Marxist cause. It was those eulogies that I found quite interesting as they topped off a documentary that very much demonstrated the cult of personality. Their directly personal nature seemed to fly in the face of the supposed doctrine of communism that refuses to acknowledge the significance of any one man over the community - yet here, the names of their founding fathers are extolled in a manner that appeared profoundly contradictory. "The greatest genius the world has ever known" or the peculiarly inappropriate "immortal" descriptions rather over-egged what is already a gushingly forced vision of state-sponsored melancholy. People seemed to weep to order, on cue, as the cameras rolled and the ever increasing size of wreaths were laid, one upon the other, as if to set up a league table of grief. Did the state control all of the florists? Historians will never agree on the extent to which this man was a tyrannical murderer or a patriot dealing with a failing post-war economy or maybe a bit of both, but that's not what this film is for. It's a colourful and striking look at something society feels the need to do time immemorial for it's leaders - be they kings, presidents or despots, and that's to see them off in great splendour whilst manoeuvring to take the spoils.

This is a documentary about a very important episode in the life of a big country - the funeral of the leader, the father of the people, as he was called. The personality of Stalin, even in our time, is quite controversial, but undoubtedly significant.

It was very interesting to see the live footage of the event, the faces of people of that era, Moscow of those years, the decoration of the Hall of Columns, where Stalin reclined.

I peered curiously at their faces: how they listened to the announcement of his death, what emotions they reflected or they tried to suppress. How they cried or watched warily, how they were dressed, how they behaved.

This is a chronicle, there is no director's assessment, just the opportunity to go back to those three days when the whole country said goodbye to its leader.

It was also interesting to see the reaction of the audience in the hall: after the show, someone went out recalling stories about this event, and someone sang patriotic songs, standing at the side of the balcony like ghosts of that era.

And mostly I had a sense of theatricality while watching a movie. Of course, the appeals of the country's leaders to the people should have a certain rhetoric, but such pathetic speeches with an abundance of pathos and slogans today seem something unnatural.

Nearly ten years ago I saw "In the fog" (2012) from Sergey Loznitsa. "In the fog" was a feature film but in essence Loznitsa is a documentary maker. With his documentaries "The trial" (2018, about a show trial in 1930), "State funeral" (2019, about the death of Stalin) and "The event" (2015, about the failed coup against Gorbatchev and the disintegration of the USSR not long after) he gives an overwiew of the history of the USSR.

For "State Funeral" Loznitsa used archive material that was shot after the death of Stalin with the intention to make the propaganda movie "The great farewell". When Stalin fell into disgrace after a 1956 speech by Nikita Khrushchev, "The great farewell" was never finished and the archive material had to wait for a long time before being rediscovered by Sergey Loznitsa.

Loznitsa just edited the archive material. There is no voice over. Only in the end credits there is a little explanation. It is assumed that everybody knows Stalin and his crimes. In the film there are speeches of Gregory Malenkov and Lavrentyi Beria. At the time of their praise for Stalin these men were already in a fierce power struggle with Nikita Kruschev. If you want to know more about this power struggle, watch "The death of Stalin" (2017, Armando Iannucci).

In effect "State funeral" is not about Stalin but about a personality cult. Yes the film is long and many would say too long. But it is too long with a purpose. All those speeches throughout the vast Soviet Union, using the same vocabulary again and again, ultimately give the impression of some sort of religious liturgy.

Cinimatically speaking the film is much richer than the (lack of a) story suggests. In the use of faces Loznitsa proves to be a worthy successor to Sergey Eisenstein. The use of color (bright red flags against grey buildings) reminded me of "Raise the red lantern" (1991, Zhang Yimou). The image of a picture of Stalin floating through the air on a crane via "Good Bye Lenin" (2003, Wolfgang Becker, a statue of Lenin) ultimately leads back to "La dolce vita" (1960, Federico Fellini, a statue of Jesus Christ). A movie quote on the basis of a movie quote! All this together with beautiful (funeral)music from Schubert, Mozart, Mendelsohn, Chopin, Schumann and Tschaikovsky make "State funaral" to a unique viewing experience.

Shortly after Stalin's death, on March 5, 1953, Soviet film crews were instructed to picture the national mourning all over the USSR. This resulted in kilometres of film, shot in the highest quality available at the time.

A few years later Stalin fell off public grace, and these films were stored & forgotten.

About 60 years later, Sergey Loznitsa worked his way through this extensive material, and produced this excellent documentary about Stalin's funeral and the national mourning around it.

Loznitsa's choices are historically correct, and the fine shooting of the 1953-Soviet film crews does the rest. You should also remember that the Russian way is somewhat slower than our way - they take their time to do things. And so does Loznitsa.