Years back when Andrei Konchalovsky made the 1979 gargantuan
epic Russian film Siberiade, at a festival screening the director met up
with the theater’s projectionist hoping to catch wind of what the Soviet
censors objected to in his film.As they
started talking, the man turned out to be none other than Ivan Sanchin (real
name Alexander Ganshin) who was whisked away from his home one night into the
Kremlin to become Soviet leader Joseph Stalin’s personal private projectionist
from 1939 to 1951. As the night went on and brandy was drunk, the two amassed
enough conversation over Sanchin’s days showing Stalin major studio movies from
around the world as well as keeping tabs on the Second World War newsreels.Though eventually (briefly) emigrating to
Hollywood, the story stayed with Konchalovsky for years and in 1991 he decided
to bring Sanchin’s surreal, frightening and fascinating life experiences to the
silver screen with The Inner Circle.
Starring Animal House and Amadeus lead Tom
Hulce in the role of Sanchin, one of the actor’s most complex and difficult if
not occasionally misogynistic characters, we find him working as a
projectionist for the KGB.Abruptly
summoned one night, he is quickly introduced to Stalin’s (Aleksandr Zbruyev) Inner
Circle in one of the first major motion pictures allowed to be filmed
within the Kremlin walls.An American,
Italian and Russian co-production and released in the United States by Columbia
Pictures, this English language star studded film co-authored by Konchalovsky
and Anatoliy Usov in the time-honored tradition of its director becomes an
emotionally engaging portrait of individuals functioning under great duress. Though otherwise happily married to Anastasia (Lolita
Davidovich) in his cramped apartment, Sanchin laps up the sweet new rewards
afforded to him by working for Stalin and finds himself torn between witnessing
bizarre dynamics playing out within the Kremlinlooking the other way as the
head of state security Lavrentiy Beria (Bob Hoskins) ingratiates himself between
their marriage.To make matters worse, a
Russian-Jewish couple’s daughter in an apartment next door is left to an
orphanage whom Anastasia wants to adopt, generating yet another toxic rift in
her increasingly tenuous beleaguered marriage.
From Italian producer Claudio Bonivento, like Mikhail
Kalatozov’s The Red Tent the film utilizes a largely Italian crew
replete with Franco Zeffirelli’s cinematographer Ennio Guarnieri giving the
production a stark contrast between the gloomy impoverished apartment life to
the formidable yet polished Kremlin walls.This of course wouldn’t be a Konchalovsky effort without the great
Eduard Artemyev lending his electronic musical mastery to the proceedings,
evoking the feelings of fear, confusion and in the end a sense of hope felt by
Sanchin and his loved ones during a time of great upheaval.Artemyev needs no introduction and his mere
association with any film project, good or bad, goes up a notch in
quality.Here the composer conjures up scary
stark synth notes in between some of the calmer western themes heard in Konchalovsky’s
last English language film Homer and Eddie, Performers, largely Russian actors with a few American
leads, as always in a Konchalovsky film come through first and foremost loud
and clear.If there’s any director able
to take scenes audiences are unfamiliar with and make the situation and those
living it instantly relatable, it is most certainly Andrei Konchalovsky.Few directors are able to get their actors to
basically give emotional blood onscreen.That said, Hulce affecting a Russian accent is splendid in the role of
Sanchin who presents a casual expertise over technical equipment few in the
arena are able to contest and Konchalovsky and Hulce aren’t afraid to allow
Sanchin to be a bastard at times.
Special attention goes to Lolita Davidovich who finds
herself fighting an uphill battle to keep her marriage and dignity intact while
trying to rescue an innocent child separated from her parents, meanwhile
fending off the lecherous Beria with Bob Hoskins channeling his boorish The
Long Good Friday gangster vibes.Given
Konchalovsky’s clout in Hollywood and Moscow, He was also able to cast veteran
Russian stage actor Aleksandr Zbruyev who makes Stalin a mercurial and
reclusive figure we, over the course of the movie, still find out very little
about. Released just one day before the dissolution of the Soviet
Union which then became the Russian Federation, looking back now in our current
headlines involving the ongoing war in Ukraine, The Inner Circle comes
across now as timely while still ultimately remaining a nonjudgmental portrait
of an ordinary movie man’s brief unwanted brush with a repressive regime.Functioning as a quasi-romantic historical
drama as well as a curious gaze into how the Kremlin processed the movies, the
film doesn’t quite have the teeth of Konchalovsky’s Siberiade or
ferocity of Runaway Train but nevertheless is a powerful true-to-life human
tale of love and survival.
Yes the English speaking Russians can be disorienting and works
against the authenticity somewhat, feeling like David Lean’s Doctor Zhivago at
times, but in a director like Konchalovsky’s hands, I’ll accept it. Though some may be disappointed the film
doesn’t make any formal declarations about the subject of Ivan Sanchin’s place
in The Inner Circle beyond bearing firsthand witness to a lot of
depressing, strange and terrifying things, as a film it unfolds like a slice of
life, anecdotal and framed like an oddly fond collection of memories bubbling
from that little chat writer-director Andrei Konchalovsky had with its
protagonist.
