Children of the Revolution

Plot synopsis:
Joan (Judy Davis) is a young Australian communist who goes to the Soviet Union as part of a work study program in the 1950s. There she catches the eye of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin (F. Murray Abraham) and the two sleep together just before Stalin dies. Returning to Australia, Joan discovers she is pregnant and gives birth to Stalin's love child, whom she names Joe (Richard Roxburgh). Her son has a troubled upbringing, rebelling against both his mother's left wing politics and Australian society in general. He spends time in jail where he learns about Stalin's crimes from a fellow inmate. Upon release marries Anna (Rachel Griffiths) a police officer who had arrested him. She is the child of Ukrainian refugees who fled to Australia to escape Stalin's purges. Pledging to go on the straight and narrow, Joe rises to become the head of Australia's police union and seizes more and more political power. Anna learns of Joe's true parentage, but keeps this secret from Joe out of love and a conviction that she cannot truly know for certain. The secret eats at their relationship and Joe resents the secrecy when it is revealed.

Tags: comedy, avant garde, murder, violence, flashback, insanity, satire

Review:
As a son who grew up in a family of communists, I found this movie very insightful: the twists and turns of what fervent idealists took to be worker's paradise through the 50s, 60s, 70s and then to the end of the dream in the late 80s/early 90s was very well portrayed, especially with Judy Davis' stalwart commitment, which was portrayed quite sympathetically; the dark side of her family relationships was also poignantly sketched, as were her son's struggles with history: both global and personal; all in all, a superb blend of the comic and the dramatic: a genre it's very easy to screw up and is rarely, if ever, handled as deftly as it was here..
An odd idea, a good movie..
When I saw this film in the TV listings, I thought "could be some good tack." It's much better than that.
It starts off almost comedic like, culminating in Stalin singing.
The film then focuses on her son Joe, and his problems in finding out he is the son of Stalin, and his gradual descent into Stalinism.
The film serves as a warning against Stalinism, about how any abuse of power, no matter the end, is wrong.
The interest is held with some superb acting by the cast and the idea of Stalin producing a child and "heir." The movie could use more of an ending, and it does treat itself as being "true" particularly at the end.
Having said that this is well worth watching and I recommend it to anyone intrigued by Communism and Stalin..
Then, after making light of some serious history, the ending takes a dark, ironic turn to drive home its message that whatever political system you choose, the worst elements in human nature are here to stay....
In documentary style we learn something about Australia's dirty history (well this is a satire so don't check out the net for verification, okay?) We go back in the early fifties at where we find an Australian communist Joan Fraser (Judy davis) who really would give her life for the red star, it goes so far that she can arrange to meet the man Stalin himself (all of course before the public knew of his slaughters) and what Joan never expected...she ends up in bed with Stalin but as the man is walking on his last feet, he dies...
Agent Nine (Sam Neil) tells her she's a hero who saved Russia and that same night she also ends up in his bed....
Things of hilarious things are following and we follow the days of the child Joe welch (Richard Roxburgh).
For communist mum he's a perfect child...always to be seen at manifestations against the Vietnamwar but then the nightmare strikes...Joe falls in love with a female cop!
"Children of The Revolution" is one of those well-executed dark comedies, that the Australian Film Industry excels at.
If one enjoys dark comedy with a heady twinge of surrealism, you're really going to enjoy this movie.
You really do need to have some familiarity with the vocabulary of socialism in the 1930s and 40s to fully appreciate how good this film is.
The German film "Goodbye Lenin!" (2003) touches the same sort of themes.So, anyway, the script well written, literate and just a bit edgy, the way Australian films often are.
The back story is wonderful and is ably developed by Sam Neil, Judy Davis and F.
F. Murray Abraham's performance actually reminded me of Claude Raines.This film works on many levels and Richard Roxborough and Rachel Griffiths are very good but I as am more familiar with Russian communist dogma and American films from the 40s and 50s, I am sure I missed a lot when the film turned its attention to contemporary Australian politics and the civil service.I loved the way the "International" was used in the sound tack.
the best Australian comedy about communism ...ever.
Judy Davis is a young communist in 1950 Australia.
Great performances (especially from Judy Davis) and unique plot twists made this film worth watching..
One unsettling attribute of this movie is that it presents itself as if it were based on a true story.
Judy Davis plays a Socialist who allegedly had an affair with Josef Stalin (F.
Murray Abraham), and when she gives birth to a son with all the revolutionary's traits, there is some dispute about whether he is who everyone thinks he is.
During the film he gets into all sorts of trouble with the law and eventually falls in love with a cop that frequently arrests him (Rachel Griffiths).
I had never heard of this film, and so last night I had an unexpected pleasure in watching a clever movie.
Judy Davis was wonderful as the pro communist mother -- what a performance!
This movie is a dark Australian comedy and worth seeing..
Hello, I support the opinion, that "Children of the Revolution" is a drama film - however interwoven with absurd and impossible situations.
These do not make a comedy, no more than the scene of Stalin perfuming his underpants.
It is certainly not a film against left politics.
In this respect the film strongly reminded me of "The Truman story" - but perhaps this association is purely personal.
If any, the theme of the film may be a satire on personal authority (on the other hand, in "The Truman story" it is the immersion in the community, with in the end Truman sailing away to freedom and loneliness).
I will now summarize the story, which seems allowed since the films lacks a climax or the building up of suspense.
Her son Joe develops an uncanny desire for imprisonment, and gets married to the cop who repeatedly arrested him.
During the story it remains unclear who is the real father of Joe. The suspicion that it might be Stalin completely changes Joes character and behavior.
As a union leader Joe succeeds in taking over the power and control of the police force.
Eventually his mother brings about his fall after revealing to the public the name of his professed father (Stalin).
Subsequently she is murdered by what seems to be an Australian fascist, and Joe is once again imprisoned.
It could be called a qualitative weakness of the film, but perhaps I am wrong and I welcome other explanations.
Any way, basically the overall aim must have been to reveal the idiocy of unconditional authority, irrespective of its source, either family, communism, fascism or perhaps religion (with Jane as both the virgin mother and Judas).
This movie has a promising premise: A near-fanatical pro-communist young woman travels to Moscow and has a dalliance with Stalin (and may have unwittingly killed him!).
Upon her return to her native Australia and discovery that she's pregnant, she marries her eager, long-suffering suitor and continues in her work for the party.The movie appeared to be two in one.
The first half was promising, providing decent political satire in the form of black humor.
The individual gags are quite funny, but overall, what is this movie about?
Is it an anti-communist film that relies on comedy to make its point?
I knew absolutely nothing about this film before I saw it and I don't think I had any an preconceptions.
The story sounded oddly interesting--a woman who claimed her son was the bastard of Joseph Stalin!
I think part of the problem is that IF it originally was meant to be a comedy (and I'm not sure that really was the intention), how can Joseph Stalin be funny?!
You would think that the fact that he was one of the greatest murderers in human history would preclude any attempt at comedy!
If that WAS their intention, it was a very sick joke and may perhaps illustrate a problem with whoever was responsible for this film.
Was this film, perhaps, meant less as a joke and more as a homage to Stalin or to paint him as not such a bad guy?
All I know is you shouldn't waste your time.FYI--if you think I am being too narrow-minded or unfair to the picture, try substituting "Joseph Stalin" for Hitler, Charles Manson or Jeffrey Dahmer as the focus of this movie.
Do you think all their victims would find this movie a barrel of laughs?.
This film brought tears of joy and laughter to my family when we saw it.
I guess you had to be there or you had to be the child of Australian lapsed communist actors in the 1950s to see how wickedly apt Judy Davis' performance was- Lines like "Its hard to plan a revolution with six o'clock closing" had us rolling on the floor.
Joe Stalin as the father of this almost physcotic love child.
This film shows messes around with history in a way that makes for clever viewing.
The performances are spot-on, and it captures the period of reds-under-the-bed Australian life accurately, even if the conclusion does take itself just a touch too seriously..
Odd but on-target and funny movie.
I'm a huge fan of Judy Davis, so I was eager to see her in a movie from her native land for a change, and this ranks with her best performances.
It's odd to find a mid-90's film that's a satire on communism, but writer-director Peter Duncan and Davis do a good job here.
Although Davis' character, Joan Fraser, is so single-minded, she and Duncan don't make the mistake of caricaturing her, instead making a strong, energetic person who happens to be a zealot.The movie does stumble with F.
Murray Abraham's portrayal of Stalin.
In his hands, Stalin is a caricature, and so the potential unease we might have on Joan's behalf (though she's fiercely dedicated, she wouldn't stand behind a mass murderer) is passed over, and he comes off like a marshmallow.
On the other hand, the ever-reliable Sam Neill is a perfect fit as the secret agent Joan comes in contact with, Geoffrey Rush is good as the long-suffering Zachary, who Joan dominates with the same fervor she dominates political meetings, and Richard Roxburgh is funny as Joan's son Joe, who, naturally, becomes a police leader.
The best support, however, comes from Rachel Griffiths as Joe's girlfriend, also a cop..
The ProsTo me, the premise is hilarious - Stalin's love child.I'm always happy to spend two hours watching Judy Davis.
I think she's just great.I saw this movie just before I got sick of seeing Sam Neil everywhere and I remember thinking he was neat.The world of Stalin is absolutely hilarious.
F. Murray Abraham pulls off a number of macabre gags with great presence.Also, it's a wry look at political activism and some of the poses that resemble it.The ConsGets boring after the first half and the premise doesn't add up to much.Worth seeing just for the courtship of Stalin alone..
Don't get me wrong, I thought this was a great movie.
When I saw previews for it, it seemed like it would be a funny comedy.
There are some comedic moments in it, true, but I would classify this film as a drama more than a comedy.
Three Kings had comedic moments, as did Fight Club, but I wouldn't classify either of those as comedies.
I feel that Miramax dropped the ball by advertising this film as a comedy..
I heard a lot of nice things about this little film : good surprise, funny comedy...
The storyline contains some good ideas, but the whole thing seemed to me a little weak, even a little boring : every detail is shown ten times for who didn't watch well, it's not far from the telletubbies tv show.
I'd advise best a 1993 very funny (but also poetic) movie called "Not Everybody's Lucky Enough to Have Communist Parents" that has a similar character : the mother, who puts her politic engagement upper than anything..
Australian film creates the bizarre story of an Australian labor leader who sleeps with Stalin just before he dies and then raises his son.
The movie relies on biological determinism and individual personality traits to create bourgeois criticisms of Stalin as an evil tyrant and leader of a personality cult..
You'd just seen Reds and you want to wash the hopelessness out with some - any - evidence that there is a historical and moral conscience somewhere in the film industry with regard to Stalinism and Soviet Communism.
You come across a little-known Australian production called Children of the Revolution which bills itself as a satire of the the western true-believers valorized in Reds; a comedy about a 'useful idiot' so starstruck by Uncle Joe, she flocks to Stalin as a groupie would and ends up pregnant and raising his love child.Now, I, and I'm sure anyone, could imagine about a dozen ways this premise could be developed into a narrative coherent enough to be both cutting and entertaining.
You wanna write and direct a feature film production?" and someone at the bus stop shouted back up, "Sure!
I've seen at least a dozen movies!"The movie starts out with the stated premise as a satire, but not very strongly.
If there's some significant historical event connecting Australia to the Cold War, Children of the Revolution fails to make note of it.
The movie is nonetheless set entirely in Australia and has an A-list cast of Australian actors.
We may assume that there was at some point a contest put on by the Australian Film Council, or something like that, and the 'auteur' who wrote and directed this thing was awarded a production grant and given carte blanc to make some kind of movie on the strength of his submission of a ten-minute short..
Quirky what-if flick about young Australian communist Joan Fraser Welch (Judy Davis), who gets impregnated by Joseph Stalin (F.
Murray Abraham, who seriously does manage to look like the dictator) on the day that he dies, and has to raise the son without letting the boy know the whole story.
Interesting comedy.
This film is about a woman obsessed with Communism, and her life after bearing Stalin's child.The film is meant to be a comedy, and it should be viewed as so.
I find Judy Davis' performance as the obsessed woman very magnetic.
Her despair towards the end of the film, when Communism experiences downfall, is also depicted well.
Though it is a comedy, I find the pace rather slow, which is more like a drama.
Overall, I think it is an intelligent comedy, much better than the average toilet joke films..
This film had so much promise.
The basic idea of the plot, Stalin's love child trying to find himself, is incredibly funny and original.
Murray Abraham, who does a wonderful job at Stalin.
There are some really great, weird, darkly humorous parts to the film.
This good part of the film especially centres around Stalin himself, in part since the whole idea of making a comedy about Stalin, a decidedly unfunny person, is itself hilarious and brilliant.However, the film mostly falls flat.
It has many really boring parts which seem thrown in because the makers didn't know what else to do while the funniest themes are left underdeveloped, with a failure to fully use the great comic potential within the film.
Other aspects are just plain lame or fail to come together and much of the film seems to just drag on, stumbling aimlessly onward, lost and without any idea of where it should be heading.
The result gives the impression that the makers of this film realised that this was wonderful premise but then had no idea what to do with it..
Brilliant performances from the whole cast set a unique story line ablaze with sparkling moments.
A failed black comedy.
While Judy Davis and Sam Neill give their usual fine performances, the script is so weak that the entire film crashes.
It's supposed to be a chronicle of a wild-eyed Communist who has sex with Stalin and gives birth to an extremist who enjoys being handcuffed.
Sight gags (walking into a tree) and silliness (Stalin's successors act up like the three stooges at his death) provide the only comic relief from this dreary tale that seems to go on for hours..
What Stalin's love child does to Australia.
Some Australian movies are crap, but some are actually quite clever.
This is one movie that I think is quite clever.
It is about a fanatical communist woman who goes on a trip to Russia, sleeps with Stalin, and then returns to Australia and has his baby.
With the support of the guards and the police, he is elected head of the police union and uses his control of the police to increase his power.The ending seems to be conclusive, but I think that there is more to it than not.
Basically, fearing that her son may be killed, the Joseph's mother tells everybody that he is the son of Stalin.
The link is tenuous, and a guy that is as intelligent and as devious as Joseph will be able to beat the charge and return to his job, all the while eliminating his enemies.This movie is a comedy, and it starts off as one, but as the end nears the pace becomes much less comical and much more serious.
The idea about how Joseph takes over Australia is a very plausible one.
The creator of the movie obviously put a lot of thought into how it might be done.It is interesting to note how his life is very similar to that of Stalin's.
He has a last name that should be changed (Hitler and Stalin), he is in prison for a short time as a political prisoner, and he works his way to the top through bureaucratic manipulation.
Hitler and Stalin were both like that, though that is probably not the route of most dictators.Still, I thought that this was a great movie and like some of the ideas that are raised in it.