Fatherland

Fatherland is a slick political short about what Georgians (at least some) feel about a local boy who made good. Joseph Vissarionovich Jughashvili, better known to the world as Stalin, was probably the most powerful and feared world leader of the twentieth century. Non-Georgians will probably need a good deal of context in order to "decode" what this film is getting at, as it also seems to be an ironic commentary on current events. My only gripe here is: couldn't they have found an actor who looks a little more like the real "Vozhd"? In Tbilisi you see men every day in the street or on the subway who are dead ringers for Stalin, men like the legendary Mikhael Gelovani who played the dictator in a number of films in the 1930s and 40s and was actually prohibited from accepting any other roles. Apart from that, the film is a thoughtful, extremely well-crafted and poignant jab at anti-democratic tendencies in Georgian society. 8 out of 10.