国家葬礼

"State funeral" by Sergei Loznitsa is entirely collected from the chronicle about the farewell of the Soviet Union to Joseph Stalin. The film itself is made in a straightforward and non-judgmental manner: for two hours we look at the archival footage of the Soviet Union's farewell to its beloved leader Joseph Stalin, fantastic in every sense of the word. At the beginning of the painting, the coffin is brought into the Column Hall of the House of Unions, at the end, after the body is buried in the mausoleum, a solemn salute thunders throughout the country. No violations of the chronology, no comments, except - by the way, absolutely correct and non-judgmental - dates and numbers with the number of victims of the regime before the final credits. A convinced Stalinist can also watch The State Funeral, and it is possible that he will cry.

Tears abound here. Mourners, especially those who manage to approach the coffin in person, do not hold back their emotions, and Loznitsa, with a slight, barely noticeable mockery, emphasizes this offscreen "Lacrimosa" from Mozart's Requiem. To this are added the sensitive Schumann and Tchaikovsky, the ritual-funeral Mendelssohn and Chopin. Music is one of the few open artistic techniques used in the montage films of the conceptualist Loznitsa. The second is the soundtrack, created here with the trademark filigree clarity by Vladimir Golovnitsky, the third is the very arrangement of scenes and frames. At the same time, one hundred percent of the graphic series consists of an archive. Loznitsa also had it in “Blockade”, “Event”, “Trial”.

People, frozen, listen to the message about Stalin's death from the loudspeakers. They read newspaper editorials in all languages of the multinational country, with the same ceremonial portrait. Columns with wreaths endlessly stretch along avenues, streets and squares to the center of the world, where the cherished coffin stands. They enter the Column Hall. The first persons of the state close to the throne are on guard of honor. Panorama of the entire empire: mourning in Tajikistan and Chukotka, in the Donbass and in Latvia, at sea and on land, in the snow and fields. And so on and so forth.

This funeral is a grandiose performance. As they say today, immersive. Spectators are its full-fledged participants, without whom the action would not have taken place. The audience in the hall, where Loznitsa's film is shown, too. Stalin has turned into an artifact, he is about to become a mummy, forever incarnate from a physical object into a symbol. But living people are looking at him, about whom we do not know anything, but whose reality is beyond doubt. Although the motives remain bewitchingly vague: what if they don't really grieve, what if they are inwardly rejoicing? If you say goodbye not to your beloved tyrant, but to the era of tyranny that is leaving without a trace? In the end, we too are hypnotized by this unhurried action, this sacred ritual. We look at the onlookers, coming at last, standing in line. Here it is, the rite sung by Sorokin to line up in single file and endure, endure, endure until we get access to something desired: clothes, sausage, the belt of the Virgin, earthly or spiritual food, the spectacle of the body of the deceased leader.

One of the main effects of "State Funeral" is color: it turns out that a lot of color chronicles were filmed. Particularly impressive is the scarlet red carpet of draperies and banners, bandages on the sleeves, and countless carnations. And since color shots are interspersed with exactly the same black and white, it feels uncomfortable. As if people from 1953 are so absorbed in their black and white picture of the world that they do not see the red that is noticeable to us. As in a horror movie, blood appears on the image as bright indelible spots, recalling the unspoken background of events. Indeed, the film does not even mention the thousands trampled to death at Stalin's funeral - this did not make it into the official chronicle. But the smell of blood is in the air, and its color sets the tone for the spectacle.

There is also another smell - of rotting flowers in which the corpse of the Generalissimo is drowning. They are carried and carried to the coffin by citizens of the Soviet Union. At some point, people completely disappear from the frame, the surreal landscape near Red Square consists of solid mourning wreaths. One involuntarily recalls Dutch painting (one of the co-producing countries - Holland), where flower still lifes reminded of the frailty of life, the inevitability of wilting and death. However, the Soviet flowers are not like that: the offscreen radio voice solemnly broadcasts about "a wreath of stainless steel, bronze and brass."

Stalin, too, will not rust like that very wreath. Announcers and speakers at the funeral meeting repeat incantations about the immortality of the untimely deceased. "Stalin is dead, long live Stalin" is an absurdist formula. When it touched kings, the subjects glorified the heir to the throne - the new king, but one glance at Malenkov, who reads a speech from the Mausoleum, is enough to understand: anyone who replaces Stalin is only a temporary worker, and the generalissimo is truly immortal, as in a terrible tale. His death is hidden in some kind of magic egg that no one can reach.

"State Funeral" is not a replica of Yevgeny Yevtushenko's film "Stalin's Funeral" or "Khrustalyov, My Car!" by Alexei German, but rather a response to the 2017 British comedy "The Death of Stalin" which was banned for rental in Russia, and no clear reason for the ban was ever named by the authorities. Obviously, laughing at the dead Stalin is the best confirmation of the fact of his death; it is also indisputable that the fear and unwillingness to hear this laughter is equal to the refusal to accept the fact of death. Stalin is forever alive, as it was said back in 1953.

One of the subtle author's moves in "State Funeral" is the inclusion of Matvey Blanter's Lullaby on the poem by Mikhail Isakovsky in the soundtrack as the final number. This touching song is known to many, but not everyone has heard its first version (here it is performed by Sergei Lemeshev), where there are the following lines: "Stalin will give you strength, Stalin will show the way with his hand ..." them in the fateful 1937: there, naturally, Comrade Stalin, "the best friend of youth" - the inscription from one of the funeral wreaths in the film, rocks countless cradles with his hand. The image of the sole "father of nations", hugging mothers and nursing children, seemed too frank to the censorship, and Vertov's film was actually banned from showing.

Loznitsa hints that at the time of his death, Stalin underwent an amazing transformation. From a symbolic god-father, he turned into a "sparrow", "son", a "dear bell" from a song. A Soviet man lulls him in the hope that the savior did not die, but only fell asleep for a while. Time will pass, he will definitely wake up, like King Arthur on the island of Avalon, and save us from all misfortunes.

"Спи, богатырь, спи! (Sleep, hero, sleep!)" - as Saltykov-Shchedrin wrote on a similar occasion in one of his non-childish fairy tales.