The Inner Circle (1992)

Very well executed

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Soviet-American screenwriter, producer and director Andrey Konchalovsky's thirteenth feature film which he co-wrote with screenwriter Anatoli Usov, is inspired by real events in the life of a Soviet man named Alex Sanchin who was the private projectionist for Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) for twelve years. It was screened In competition at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival in 1992, was shot on locations in Moscow, Russia and is an Italy-Russia-USA co-production which was produced by Italian producer Claudio Bonivento. It tells the story about a field projectionist named Ivan Sanchin who lives in an apartment in Moscow, Soviet Union with his fiancée named Anastasia and who one day in 1939 after a man named Aaron Gubelman who lives in the same building with his wife named Sonia and their daughter named Katja is taken by KGB officers to the KGB headquarters. Distinctly and precisely directed by Soviet-American filmmaker Andrey Konchalovsky, this quietly paced and somewhat fictional tale which is narrated by the protagonist and mostly from his point of view, draws a moving and unsettling portrayal of a patriotic Russian man who during the beginning of the Second World War in the late 1930s is brought to the Kremlin and offered a job as a projectionist for the authoritarian and dominant leader of the Soviet Union which then was ruled as a single-party state by the Communist Party. While notable for its naturalistic milieu depictions, fine cinematography by Italian cinematographer Ennio Guarniero, production design by production designers Gianni Giovagnoni and Vladimir Murzin and costume design by costume designer Nelli Fomina, this narrative-driven story depicts a thorough and empathic study of character and contains a great score by Soviet-Russian composer Eduard Artemyev. This biographical, at times humorous and conversational drama from the early 1990s which is set in the former constitutionally socialist state of the Soviet Union (1922-1991) in the late 1930s, 1940s and early 1950s and where a woman forms a strong bond with a little girl who has been left on her own after her parents were taken by the Committee for State Security and an ordinary man becomes so proud and committed when he gets to work for the most powerful and worshiped man and dictator in his totalitarian country that it affects his relationship with the woman he loves, is impelled and reinforced by its cogent narrative structure, substantial character development, colorful characters and the charming and engaging acting performances by American actor Tom Hulce and Canadian actress Lolita Davidovitch. A historical, heartrending, romantic and informative narrative feature.

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.

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.

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...