L'assassinat de Trotsky

This film has a reputation as a terrible film which I find greatly undeserved. It is average in the sense there are better films and there are worse. I found the film to be fairly static. The story is slow moving and the character of the assassin is never really delineated. Alain Delon is the true lead of the film, with Burton's Trotsky more a secondary character. I thought Burton did a fine job as Trotsky, the only think slightly bothering me is that Burton was physically imposing and that's not how I picture Trotsky. I picture him as more of a bookish intellectual of less than physically imposing attributes. (I do not know the actual physical attributes of Trotsky.)

In any case, Romy Schneider is very lovely and sexy and the camera also treats Delon well, even if we do not have any clear insight to his motivation. In the end, I'm not sure what the purpose of this film was and that is its greatest failure. But, while the film did not succeed, there is nothing memorably bad about it. So my rating falls plum in the middle.

While this certainly doesn't deserve to be included in Michael Medved's "50 Worst Films Of All Time" book, it's nonetheless a disappointment when considering the talent involved!

An unconvincingly made-up Richard Burton is a good Trotsky (even if director Losey had originally wanted Dirk Bogarde); the film takes pains to depict the family-man (embittered by the Stalinists' extermination of his children) as well as the politician. Though struggling with the often unwieldy English dialogue, Alain Delon is ideally cast as the slick but icy and enigmatic assassin; still, his final break-down comes across as absurd more than anything else. However, the feminine roles in the film result in being no more than perfunctory: Romy Schneider carries on a tedious romance with Delon (they were once lovers in real-life), while Valentina Cortese appears as Trotsky's dowdy wife. Also notable in the cast is Giorgio Albertazzi as the police inspector investigating an earlier attempt on Trotsky's life; Luis Bunuel regular Claudio Brook appears unbilled in one scene as Delon's 'contact man' in Mexico.

The subject matter, in itself, isn't exactly appetizing – but some of Burton's speeches are undeniably compelling (one of which mentions that Trotsky feared he'd succumb to a brain hemorrhage – the uncanny irony is that Burton himself died in that manner, and at approximately the same age as the Russian leader!) and the interaction between him and Delon towards the end generates a reasonable amount of tension (culminating in Trotsky's bloody and protracted assassination). Still, at the end of the day, Losey's treatment of events is surprisingly lifeless (especially for a Hollywood exile from the anti-Communist days!) and of a seriousness which is oppressive (including the obvious use of symbolism via a gory bullfight sequence).

P.S. Incredibly enough, the afore-mentioned Bunuel (my personal favorite film-maker) once spent a night in a Mexican jail – with none other than Trotsky's real-life killer as his cell-mate!

So-so and unhistorical attempt attempt to dramatize the last days of the Russian Revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky in Mexico , when his ideas accordingly shrink in importance . For one moment , they hold history in their hands . With one terrible blow , they make it .

Thrilling and interesting film dealing with Trotsky's last couple of months in exile in Mexico. Revolving around a web of intrigue , concerning a twisted conspiracy of terror resulting in an act of madness carried out by Stalinist agents got to him . There are some brilliant scenes as the bullfighting scenes or the mise in scene of the murder , being competently shot . Main and secondary cast are frankly good . Richard Burton gives a nice acting , portraying him as a dry and pedantic figure, as he was the famous leader who commanded Red Army during the Civil War against the White troops , and eventually , he's done in with an ice pick . Support cast is pretty well, such as : Valentina Cortese as Trotsky's kind wife , Romy Schneider who is wasted seeming like an unfinished role , Enrico Maria Salerno as Salazar , Jean Desailly , Duilio Del Prete , Michael Forest , Hunt Powers , among others .

It contains an atmospheric cinematography by Pasqualino De Santis , however , a perfect remastering being really necessary . The picture was profesionally and deliberately directed by Joseph Losey , though it has some flaws, gaps and shortcomings . Here Losey doesn't give too much historical remarks , we're so starved of hard information that one can only wish for more . The American Losey was a good director on his own , making nice films as in USA as Great Britain where he exiled pursued by the HUAC -House Un-American Activities Committee- , as he made the following important movies : The boy with Green Hair , The Lawless , The Prowler , M , The Big Night , Time without pity , The Criminal, The Damned , Modesty Blaise , Secret Ceremony , Figures in a Landscape , The Go-betwen , Accident , A Doll's House , King and Country, Boom , Galileo, The Romantic Englshwoman , Mr Klein, and The Servant at his best .

When Joseph Losey gets his hands on the right material he can do wonders with it. This doesn't seem to have been the right material, or maybe Losey was just impatient with Burton's boozing or something.

First, don't expect a biopic of Leon Trotsky, the stormy petrel of revolution. The title describes the assassination of Trotsky. He's a professorial sort, exiled to Mexico City after Stalin took over and betrayed Lenin's principles by playing footsies with Wall Street. It often happens with extremist ideologies that they split up, because everyone wants to be purer than the next guy. At that, Trotsky was lucky to get out alive. Stalin had ANYONE who represented a threat to his power murdered. Stalin went about, doing bad.

It's an unpleasant movie. We have to sit through a bullfight and learn why movies usually don't show us the final coup, after which the bull drags himself around vomiting blood until he flops down, while the crowd cheers. I know -- the bravery and grace of the matador and all that, but why don't they just let the bull go? Sometimes there is a thin line between beauty and baseness. I understand why the scene was included. The matador does to the bull what Alan Resnais does to Burton, more or less. And instead of dying a neat Hollywood death, Burton staggers up from his chair, a hole in his skull, stares at Resnais and shrieks bloody murder.

There are long periods in which we watch Mexicans doing nothing in particular. And the scenes can be confusing. It's not always easy to tell what's going on. The musical score appears to have been made by a thousand chirping electronic crickets.

Lots of talent and momentous intentions gone awry.

I should have read a biography of Trotsky before seeing this film. I knew little about him before, and I don't know any more about him after watching this. This is a dreadful muddled film that seeks to conceal facts about Trotsky and make everything unclear. A prologue to the film ended with (I'm paraphrasing) "What events are unclear have been left that way". That should have served as a warning to me.

The setting is Mexico in 1940. Trotsky goes about his last days dictating his memoirs, talking to his wife, escaping assassination attempts by Stalin's agents (why--the viewer is only told Trotsky's ideas would mean the end of Stalin's regime), asking when the rabbit food for his rabbits will be delivered, and other such events. A paid assassin figures in this, but lacks the nerve to actually do his job. He takes more than two attempts. The film finally ends with the title event, which is staged like something out of a Hammer film, and has everyone screaming and bellowing.

Richard Burton as Trotsky does a lot of pontificating and dictating, but never shows what made Trotsky tick. Alan Delon as the assassin is expressionless and mostly silent until the end; then he and Burton seem in a contest to see who can bellow loudest (a tie) and longest (Delon). Cortese fades into the background.

There is a ten minute bullfighting scene that has no purpose. There are murals by Diego Rivera featured in the film (I know because they were mentioned in the credits). There is a horrid atonal score by Egisto Macchi. I'd recommend you pass on this one.