User reviews

While the film isn't the sort of thing that leaves you weeping and bawling like a little child who lost their first gold fish to the tsunami within a toilet bowl, it will leave you emotionally drained and pondering about what your own actions might have been during that time.

This isn't some fanciful suspense film or overwrought drama with silly and contrived moments of intrigue or thrills. It's a very realized and realistic dramatization of the life led by Stalin's projectionist, Ivan Sanchin, an idealistic and naive young man.

It starts with his life in 1939 and wraps up just after 1953. During this seemingly short period of time A LOT transpires that encourages, invigorates, diminishes, dampens, and revitalizes Ivan's perception on life, love, fear, and loyalty.

What makes this film so soul-crushingly gripping is the turn of events that involve Ivan and his wife. I imagine it's the sort of stress and challenge a lot of couples went through during those trying times: constantly worrying about being labeled a traitor, doing whatever you can to avoid being labeled a traitor, and sacrificing (and compromising) your own moral standards to avoid trouble.

It's heart-wrenching no doubt, but it's not like the characters are blameless, especially Ivan. Certain choices (or lack of choice) led him to a despair of his own making. But upon reflection, how many of us would have done the same thing he did when put in dire straits?

This is what makes The Inner Circle compelling. It's not like it's a completely fictionalized take on Stalinist Russia like the almost ridiculously absurd film Child 44. It's the subtle and ominous presence of being whisked away by the police for having been ratted out by neighbors; or the fear of being labeled a traitor for not giving in to the whims of the higher-ups.

It's the sleazy element of power that those within the higher command held that makes it all such a tense and thrilling watch. It's rare we get films like this these days.

There are no car chases, leaps from buildings, or shootouts to be had, yet it's a more gripping film than most action fanfare that Hollywood puts out. If you're ready for a few tears and a re-evaluation of what's important to you in life, definitely watch The Inner Circle.

Tom Hulce is great as Ivan Sanchin, a movie projectionist whom the secret service recruits in the late 1930s to work in Stalin's cinema in the Kremlin. Hulce brings exactly the right mix of naivity and exuberance to the role. The rest of the cast is excellent, too: Lolita Davidovich, for example, plays Sanchin's wife who is being seduced or raped by Beria (Bob Hoskins), becomes pregnant and commits suicide, and Aleksandr Zbruev plays Stalin with deceptive affability. The film tells a moving story of people caught up in a political system where you routinely check who might be listening behind the door before you open your mouth, and where privacy is practically non-existant, given living conditions in communal flats with communal kitchens etc. If you want to understand modern Russia - the Russia of Vladimir Putin - watching this film will go a long way to help you: A people that has been brainwashed and terrorised by its own government in different degrees of intensity over four or more generations (life under the czars was not exactly free either), who never experienced anything remotely like democracy and where no one is used to taking responsibility, is practically bound to believe any lie its rulers are dishing up. Watch this film; it's worth it!

This film is a great favorite of mine, though it's a hard-sell to recommend to friends. It's an extremely moving story that brings tears to your eyes, without manipulating you by "pulling the strings." The pathos emerge from the events and the (very well-played) characters depicted. Russian artists seem to have a special affinity for this, and for Konchalovsky this is a very accessible film. Was it tailor-made for Western audiences? The cast would suggest so. Although Tom Hulce was wonderful in "Amadeus," seeing him in "The Inner Circle" impressed me no end. I think it's telling that more than one reviewer of Russian descent on the IMDb found his characterization quintessentially Russian. It's a damn shame we don't see more of his work in films these days. The character of Ivan's wife Anastasia might have helped given rise to some comments that the characters are two-dimensional. As played by Lolita Davidovich, she is all simple, sweet naivety. Somewhat distractingly, for me she evoked memories of Gilda Radner in her appearance and voice. Nevertheless, I enjoyed her performance, and thought it an honest and effective one. All of us should have the opportunity to know someone like Anastasia in our lifetimes. Like many such characters in works of fiction, she proves to be too good to live. The scene at the end of the film, when Ivan sees the teenaged Katya amongst the mob at Stalin's funeral, and runs over the heads and shoulders of the crowd to prevent her from killing herself in the lethal crush -- it's absolutely devastating. How Konchalovsky finds a credible way to set the scene of their cathartic breakdown to each other to the fourth movement of Tchaikovsky's "Pathetique" symphony is really ingenious. I get misty just writing about it. Maybe it's not for everybody, but I can't praise it highly enough.

The angle of this movie is really interesting because instead to have the usual biopic of the "leader", we have the point of view of the citizen: at the beginning, this common man is blinded by the regime but soon its evil breaks him and his family: the choice of amazing Tom Hulce is excellent as he is one who can express all the inner characters of the good guy: optimism, enthusiasm and sadness. Hoskins plays an unusual abusive bastard in the vein of all man with power who felt beyond laws and limits. The production is really well done with the costumes and the Kremlin interiors. Usually, i can't stand Stalin period productions but this one is really different and moving!

This movie haunted me for months after seeing it, but I think that it should be considered required viewing. This movie does an amazing job at showing the kind of mindset which allows tyrants like Stalin to get away with their crimes. Those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it, and this movie does a great job at hammering that understanding home in a very heart-wrenching manner. This movie will shake you up but you'll come away from it with some really interesting perspectives on the human spirit and what we're capable of.

As an armchair historian who's read dozens of book on Stalin and the Soviet Union under his control, I was fascinated by this movie. A great cast helps underscore the paranoia, backstabbing, and fear of the Stalinist system as seen through the eyes of a small-time player who's been thrust into a very dangerous circle.

Hulce is terrific as the simple, hard-working Soviet citizen who wants nothing more than to believe in the system that dominates his life, yet he knows it's a system riddled with traps and monsters. Hoskins is equally good as the real-life monster Beria - Stalin's chief of state security and main hatchet-man.

A highly underrated movie.

I decided to review this film because of its emotional impact.

Like "The Killing Fields," it creates tremendous tension in the viewer by portraying sympathetic, likable characters within an environment of tremendous evil.

The acting and cinematography are both excellent, making a direct connection with the feelings of every character.

My only criticism is very slight (I did rate it a 10, after all), but I wondered a bit at the persistance of Sanchin's naivete. While this is central to his character, I found it a little difficult to comprehend based on what he went through.

This has to be the most boring movie I ever sat through. It is dreary and drab, has no excitement, the acting by Hulce is terrible as Hulce cannot pull off the proper accent required for this film. The story is stupid and I sure wouldn't recommend this crap for anyone unless you want to die of boredom.

Unbelievable...that's all that kept going through my mind. How could people treat others so badly? I saw this around Christmas time and it totally bummed me out. Wow, not a film for the holiday season! Basically, if you had any doubts at all about the horror that was Russia's Stalinist era, here is your confirmation. Good Acting, sad, sad story, tragic even, photography excellent (some shots looks so realistic! Of course, some scenes were shot in the Kremlin, supposedly).

Very moving film.

I saw this movie in the 90s and there were no more than 10 people inside the cinema and the movie did impress me at that time. then i watched it again few days ago and i can only confirm my first impression. it gives a true and realistic view on what stalinism was with that feeling of terror and madness that permeates the entire movie. Hulce, Davidovich and Hoskins deliver a great performance. It is an almost unknonw movie that rivals with blockbusters such as Schindler's list without suffering any inferiority complex. We celebrate the holocaust day every year but we don't know much about stalinism and its atrocities. this movie opens the door and it does it greatly. watch it!

This is a very rare picture, in that Western films very, very rarely mention Stalin and even fewer feature him on film. It's funny because although several movies have been made about Hitler, films about Stalin (and Mao) are conspicuously absent. That is why I appreciated this film so much. Although Stalin was not the MAIN character in the movie, but his projectionist, it gave great insights into this monstrous man. What also is very interesting is how Hulce's character adores Staline, but over time he becomes more and more horrified of him--sort of like how the USSR viewed him over time as well.

The acting, direction and camera work are all excellent and there is really nothing negative I can say about the film. An unusual and important film historically.

Too often, films set in Russia depict its citizens as simply Americans who happen to have a communist government. The truth is, of course, that they're two very dramatically different cultures. So why does this film get it right? Andrei Konchalovsky, the director, is Russian. Born in 1937, he grew up in exactly the world he creates here on screen. But this isn't a film designed for Russians - it is in English, and was destined to clarify the average westerner's understanding of the world's largest nation. Sadly, that was not to be. "The Inner Circle" played well in just about every country it was received - EXCEPT America. Konchalovsky, despite his early 80s artistic successes, was just coming off a pair of pathetic director-for-hire jobs ("Homer and Eddie", "Tango & Cash"). This is a return to form promised by earlier work like "Runaway Train". What makes Andrei Konchalovsky's style so enthralling exactly? I couldn't tell you. It's actually an older style of film-making, semi-static in nature. But its ability to create singular, intense images, leaves a film that stays in your mind.

But what of the other factors essential to "The Inner Circle"? Tom Hulce plays a man with a tragic flaw - he places all his trust in those who deserve none of it. He is enthralled with a world of people who are, at best, amused by his devotion - at worst, utterly indifferent. Hulce gives a lot to the role. He covers every conceivable emotion, going up highs and down lows with such complete believability that you go with him. This is the best performance I've seen from him. Other performances center around this. Lolita Davidovich, who plays his young wife, is given some of the film's best scenes (many of which she actually plays solo). She can break your heart.

There's a key scene in the cinematography for me. During the passage where two women have a conversation in the empty bunkroom of an orphanage, Ennio Guarnieri creates an intensity that alters back and forth as the cross between different lightings. Throughout the entire film, he brings out deep browns and blues, miserable, cold tones. Any production filmed in the Kremlin could easily mimic its atmosphere, but "The Inner Circle" brings a humanity that is just that much more miserable.

I can't promise that this is exactly your sort of film, but if Russia interests you, or epic dramas, or the former USSR, or even the character of Stalin himself - this is something you should see. Besides anything, "The Inner Circle" is a great film. It truly is.

There is a human tragedy of global scale - and those humans who sway this tragedy and who just turned out to be grains of sand under those wheels of history. To model what those people were in their good and weak producers and authors of "The Inner Circle" made an awesome cast in this movie - don't you agree that Bob Hoskins playing marshal Berija is worth seeing anyway. Lolita Davidovich's and great Russian actor Oleg Tabakov's was magnificent performance. And at last the central character - Ivan Sanshin - is utterly shrill figure and utterly potent message. Due to genius Tom Hulce who looks and acts completely and very naturally Russian - as I see it being Russian myself. No further words on Tom Hulce - he's just a great actor (though not a "star" in the industry, as I can guess) and every one of his works worth seeing. Even in his small role in "Parenthood" he's very convincing and dramatic - and in "The Inner Circle" he has a great material to work on... An obvious merit of this film - it is historically accurate (with exception of ahead-of-time tanks and probably something else) in details. Accurate Soviet uniforms in a Western movie is really very rare thing and in this film uniform of NKVD-officers looks authentic to the Soviet people like me... And the director's job is not bad at all - Konchalovsky has his peaks and faults and The Inner Circle is one of the peaks, I guess...

It's a fact of record that both Hitler and Stalin were insatiable film buffs, with results that showed only too clearly in their national cinemas; a fact briefly alluded to in 'The Death of Stalin'.

An early beneficiary of glasnost was the ability to use the Kremlin to make this haunting film in which Thomas Hulce plays a projectionist roused from his sleep one night to attend to the need to fix the projector at a screening at the Kremlin.

Problem solved, he's then on constant call and witnesses Stalin and his court at first hand, portrayed by chilling lookalikes in the Russian fashion with Alexandre Zbruyev a deceptively quiet and thoughtful Stalin.

To The Actors & Actress and Writers & Director of The INNER CIRCLE go my heartiest congratulations To these People belong the rare distinction of having made the greatest Movie of Joseph Stallin's RUSSIA.A Movie unparalled in the Modern Film & Stage industry.This Magnificent Achievement was Made possible by their Spirit,Courage,Unselfish Cooperation,and loyalty to their Trade.Their Movie Should be an inspiration to the Actors & Actress that will fill their Places in future Years in the Film & Stage Industry.

Stephen Hudson

This is a strange insider's tale, that's for sure. A man named Ganshin was the NKVD's cinema projectionist (called the 'KGB' in English, but that is just a simplification of course for people who never heard of its predecessor) and was suddenly coopted to start screening movies for Stalin and his 'Inner Circle', which included the spy boss Beria. This is therefore an extraordinarily interesting and revealing film of that man's tragic story. Ganshin is played in the film by the American actor Tom Hulce, best known for playing Mozart in AMADEUS (1984). He does an excellent job, far better I must say than he did with Mozart. He has just the right amount of naïve credulousness and open-eyed faith in Stalin and the system to be convincing. He, like so many millions of others at that time, was a 'true believer'. Such people genuinely believed that Stalin was a kind and loving Father of the Nation. Such was the extent and success of the brainwashing at that time! Indeed, Stalinist Russia was so like today's North Korea that the resemblances are eerie. The personality cult of Stalin was all-encompassing, and the mystique of his invincibility and superhuman wisdom was wholly accepted by the mass of the public. This is why the portrayal of Stalin in this film by the Russian actor Aleksandr Zbruev is so incredibly effective. Zbruev himself was the son of one of Stalin's ministers! But in 1937 the father was arrested and executed for being 'an enemy of the people' in the Great Purge. Zbruev here plays the man who ordered his own father's execution. He plays Stalin as a quiet, modest and straight-talking man who very softly, like a priest or a sophisticated gentleman, orders millions to be killed. In other words, as a psychotic, Stalin did not rant and rave, he quietly killed people by the millions as if he were putting a baby to sleep in a cot. The total terror inspired by the man amongst his immediate associates is better understood when we realize that they were dealing with a quiet psychopath, who smiled gently at those whom he intended to exterminate minutes later. As for Beria, he is played with great subtlety and terrifying menace by Bob Hoskins. The film was shot in Moscow, using a number of the real buildings as locations, and directed by Andrey Konchalovskiy, one of Russia's most brilliant directors, who has also worked a lot abroad. He is known for SIBERIAD (1979), RUNAWAY TRAIN starring Jon Voigt (1985), and SHY PEOPLE (1987), which is set in the bayous of Louisiana. His film RAY will be released in 2016, so that he is still very hard at work despite the fact that he is 79 years old. Hulce's wife is played by the Canadian actress Lolita Davidovich. Her acting is very intense and effective in the latter half of the film, where her situation has become so desperate. There are wonderful Russian character actors in the film, such as Feodor Chaliapin, Junior, aged 85, playing the old professor who insists that 'Satan is in the Kremlin'. The story of this film is a hair-raising one and not easily summarised. The many tragedies are heart-breaking, but then very many millions of hearts broke under Stalin, not to mention the many millions of hearts which stopped beating altogether under his gentle policy of looking after his beloved people by means of mass murder. One is left with the big question to which there has never been an answer: why is it that most of human history has been defined by psychopathic leaders who commit mass murder? Why has this scenario recurred throughout all the thousands of years of recorded history with unerring similarity? A maniac gets control of a country and starts killing everyone and no one stops him. Millions die. Still no one stops him. Even more millions die. And even then no one stops him. Does the blame lie with those who let him rise to power? Does it lie with those who suffer quietly under him and sometimes worship him while the blood in the street rises up the level of their necks? Why is it that so many political leaders are psychopaths anyway? (There are plenty of them spread around the world at the present time.) This is a question which people ignore at their own peril. This film is a useful lesson in how homicidal maniacs seize and use power, and keep it by means of inspiring sheer terror.

After reading the comments of several Russians who have given their special insights on this film, I see no point in my going into detail about its plot. But, for the Americans who were bored with it... well, history is not your thing, to use the vernacular. For me, this movie exposed the odious nature of Soviet totalitarianism, and the complete human conformity that was required for survival. This is an important film.

This movie is about a tragic figure – Sanshin, Joseph Stalin's movie projectionist, who wallows in his delusions about Stalin's greatness and infallibility, only to come to his senses when it is too late. Although the movie clearly has a political spin - the Soviet Union was bad place and Joseph Stalin a sinister and malevolent figure - it deals with a much broader fundamental theme. People choose to believe what they want, even if these beliefs do not conform to the facts. Thus, one might live in a slum and truly believe that they live in a palace and that things are good. For to acknowledge the truth is simply too painful. Sanshin believed that Stalin was looking out for the people; that Stalin could do no wrong; that Stalin was everything the newsreels claimed he was. It is easy to dismiss Sanshin as a naïve fool, but, as the movie shows, he was being bombarded by propaganda generated by a regime that controlled the distribution of information, all of which was pro-Stalin. To question the credibility of the government meant not only to place oneself and family at risk, but to question one's own personal beliefs. Thus, it is not unreasonable that Sanshin sang praises for Stalin. But what is one to do when reality and belief conflict? This question forms the crux of the story. Sanshin is forced to confront reality, with tragic consequences. By the end of the movie, Sanshin's dreams are shattered. He becomes a figure to be pitied, a victim of a system that exploited his loyalty and devotion for devious and self-serving purposes. Sanshin is us.

Andrei Konchalovsky have always been my favorite russian director, but this is his best film. It tells us about a national tragedy: Stalin tirany. Some wonderful forgein actors also add to the success of the film. They are Tom Hulce, Lolita Davidovich (Indictment: The McMartin Trial (HBO:1995)), Bess Meyer is wonderful as the Jweish girl Katya. The scene of Stalin's funeral is so shocking and touching when Katya is trying to get close to the coffin with Stalin and Ivan (Tom Hulce) is holding her because she could got killed. The most horrible thing about Katya's thoughts is that she is so devoted to comrade Stalin, she says that it's just because of her she is an educated person, she lives okay (really horrible), but 'twas Stalin who arrested her parents only because they're Jewish people. She says: What profession can I get - I am a Jew, you know. That shocks. There's no a thind more horrible than when since his or hers childhood a preson thinks that he/she is worse than the others... Thank you, Andrei Sergeevich for this wonderful and touching masterpiece

I have lived in Russia in 1974-1977, and that was already past Stalin era, it was Brezhnev era. Somehow the situation in 1974 was not very much different. The same oppressed Russian people. Exactly like in the movie. I've seen this movie in the nineties in Indonesia. Everything is so real in this movie. I could even smell the Moscow air, the cold Moscow wind, freezing Russian winter. The people (characters) in the movie are very real. It's like being there again, back in Russia (CCCP). I could feel the thrill of being oppressed, when watching this movie. This is the best movie portraying Russia and the Russians, made by a Russian.

As if we needed any further proof of Tom Hulce's wonderful ability and range as an actor, here he puts across one of his best performances. Larry Kroger (aka Mozart and Quasimodo) adds another dimension to his fine resume.

The Inner Circle is one of the movies which you can learn tasteless facts of history. While We Watch Stalin's private film projectionist Ivan Sanshin's life, actually we testify the whole nation's fate under the wings of Stalinism. The Inner Circle is so successful to portraits those sorrowful years. Yes, it's true that "bitterness level" of The Inner Circle is high(and maybe necessary too) but this movie tells this bitter story with a marvelous aesthetics that you feel both sorrow and ebullition at the same time. To able to take lesson from history, to able to understand a other nation's formidable and sorrowful efforts and to able to enjoy cinematic feast(which gives you mixed feelings)The Inner Circle must be seen. Watching The Inner Circle is definitely a rewarder experience.