Written next day. It was a day of activity: walk, swim with kids then pizza, walk and kite flying. Then later to the cinema to see The Death of Stalin. Not a lot of time for learning activities – I spent a while listening to Security Now, and can’t think of too much that was particularly new. I feel I’m beginning to understand more about the basics of encryption, and that I could stand a better chance of bringing together components.
The Death of Stalin is a film that stands on its own. Nothing I can think of combines biting humour with the horrors of history so well, certainly as far I can recall. I wonder how this might have been done as period fiction, and the answer is it would have been long, it would have to be weighty and, in many respects, it would have to be more even more absurd. This is just one of many examples of personality and dogmatic politics that badly need lampooning, of the vile individuals attracted to power, and of the foot soldiers hoping for glory yet cast aside for the slightest of reasons – it feels timely. I find myself wondering about the audience, a lot of whom didn’t seem to enjoy the film, and some (perhaps on a repeat visit, or possibly unpleasant) laughing harder and louder than I was. I’m wondering at the killings that characterise the final part of the film and comparing them mentally with John Woo’s approach – they are more brutal and they are indiscriminate in a much nastier way but, like Woo’s filmmaking, they punctuate the scenes. In short, The Death of Stalin is a badly needed distillation of the madness of the time, but it’s also a perfectly-focussed representation of the vain, incompetent, vicious and megalomaniac politicians of days gone by and years to come.