andrew-mcalpine7 Review of An Ordinary Execution

An Ordinary Execution (2010)

A dark drama set in a black period of Russian history

[10/10 · 14 December 2010]

This bitter tale should be shown widely in Russia where there is an increasing tendency for the history of Stalin to be sanitised and his millions of victims forgotten. The Putin regime increasingly hails the Stalinist period as one of heroic rectitude and struggle with few flaws. The intelligent malevolence of the dictator is surperbly displayed as is the corruption which infected his regime. Despite the endemic evil however moral bravery is also on display. Anyone who wants to get a 'feel' for the cruelty and pain of the last days of Stalin's regime should see this film. The backdrop to the film is the so-called doctors plot when the paranoid dictator had sacked not only his physicians but also his long standing body guard. His recruitment of a young female doctor to tend him, whose life is transformed by their relationship, is to my best knowledge fictional, but compellingly plausible.