Satire about ruthless dictator milieu doesn't really work

Rating: 6/10 (11 March 2018)

Satire about ruthless dictator milieu doesn't really work
I enjoyed the movie in technical terms, well shot, adequate costumes and settings, also the actors an their performances. But as satire it somehow didn't work. I appreciate that the director and scripting did pay indeed credit to the real, gruesome details of Stalin's dictatorship, naming and representing them in the movie without any filter. But it's exactly this what collides with the satirical, tragic mood of the movie. I think it's not really possible to make a synthesis of a reign of terror and a funny look at it, since the realities behind are just to terrible. Specially it you have a historic awarness of the facts. For someone without that background knowledge it may work better.
As of german tongue I can say that the many analog attempts of satire over Hitler (in movies), nazi Germany being a topic of german obession up to this day, also none of them really worked, the facts behind are just to dreadful. As a successful exception the movie Schtonk (1992) may be named, which however focused on a sideline of the history, the fake diaries of Hitler.