Within the Whirlwind

source: Within the Whirlwind

I am somewhat of a student of the early history of Nazi and Soviet-Nazi terrors and abuses, and this is a reasonably accurate, well acted portrayal of a small aspect of that. The problem with this as a movie - is that there are no real heroes here. Nobody one would really root for. Evgenia Ginzburg was as much of a tyrannical thug as her captors - a group of people holding the "party line" - party insiders - who underpinned a ludicrous utopian philosophy that led to the death of millions. Through some infighting between communist factions, some met with the same fate as the millions of non-members they impoverished - not only in the USSR but in many other places besides. It was, for me, a bit like watching a documentary about infighting between Hitler and some rare Nazi opponents who attempted to undermine him - both sides leaving an equally bad taste in the mouth.

It feels like a tv-movie made on the fly - deservable not reaching a wide audience. Don't pay any attention the the reviewers here, that give it a perfect ten. They can really only be family members and friends of the director. The story is ... well, predicable to a fault. What ever you think will happen, happens. It's also very hard to look upon the main character as some sort of wronged hero. She was after all a proud party member, true to the horrendous regime of Stalin. But, like many others in those days, she was purged by the dictator. She wasn't some freedom fighter - and that makes it hard to really care about her. But even looking past that, the movie is just not extraordinary in any way, shape or form. Not even close.

It feels like a tv-movie made on the fly - and deservable not reaching a wide audience. The story is ... well, predicable. What ever you think will happen, happens. It's also very hard to look upon the main character as some sort of hero. She was after all a party member, true to the horrendous regime of Stalin. But, like many others in those days, she was purged by the dictator. She wasn't some freedom fighter - and that makes it hard to really care about her. But even looking past that, the movie is just not extraordinary - in any way, shape or form. Only the performance of Emily Watson rescues the movie from being a complete dud.

Emily Watson delivers an incredibly strong performance as Genia. Set in the mid-30's USSR, just as Stalin's paranoia begins to terrorize a nation. Professor Eugenia Ginsburg has everything - Prestigious teaching post, connected husband, great kids & elite Party Membership. But unexpectedly, everything good goes bad and she finds herself on the wrong side of Marx. . In the ensuing nightmare, Genia's strength & integrity sustain her & those around her to survive unspeakable cruelty & savagery. Great story, great script & great romance. Best movie I've seen in quite a while (even though it's 10+ years old)

Meet Gina Ginzburg, a professor at University of Kazan. Happily married to a Red Party official, Ginzburg has it all in the Communist World: a spacious apartment, fashionable clothing, two children, a comfortable position in the Communist hierarchy. Her passion is Pushkin; She is entranced by the cadence of Pushkin's Nationalist poetry dedicated to celebrating Russia. It's 1934; all that will change. Kirov Red Party Boss in Leningrad (often mentioned as a potential successor to Joe Stalin) is assassinated, (likely on orders of Stalin). A purge of the party is in order to rid it of "Trotsky-ite and resurgent nationalist elements." Apparently the authors of the purge do not see the inherent contradiction between "Trotsky - ism" and "nationalism.." Yet to deflect the purge away from themselves the party faithful, other than Ms Ginzburg, line up to confess "unsavory bourgeois tendencies." Locked up in the dragnet, Ms Ginzburg refuses to confess, even when she is harassed by Boykin, a notorious and vicious police official. Many of the people she knew and worked confessed under pressure. Their reward was the death penalty, but Ms Ginzburg who reiterates her innocence before a kangaroo court gets 10 years in Siberia. The movie shows that some women en route in unheated cattle cars are singing songs to Stalin. Jailed with the real criminals, Ms Ginzburg wants to die and rebuffs the attention of the camp doctor until he gives her a book of Pushkin's poems. Emily Watson renders a spectacular performance as Genia Ginzburg who is reduced from the splendor of the inner = party ranks to the squalor of the Soviet prison system. Ms Ginzburg does get a joyous moment when her oppressor Boykin ends up in the gulag crying that he's innocent. Richard Wurmbrand and many other people imprisoned by the communists noted that often the police end up in jail with the people they've accused. There is a Hollywood ending when Ms Ginzburg marries the camp doctor in a type of mismatched marriage that almost seems stamped made in America. Oh well as different as the US was from Russia of his time de Tocqueville saw many congruences.

Other than the fashion being way off from the start in 1934 especially in communist Russia , the clothes and hairstyles and shoes were of the American /western mid 1940s ,wide shoulder pads with big lapels ,jaunty hats and wartime rolled hairstyles with flowing locks.

For anyone interested in Communist Russia / Solzhenitsyn's literature, a must-see. Gripping, depressing, passionate, and intense.

Marleen Gorris obviously got off to a flying start with the chilingly remarkable (but in so many ways also unremarkable) story of Yevgenia Ginzburg, which had to be smuggled out of the USSR in 1967, even though Ginzburg - more or less a lifelong communist - had by then been "rehabilitated" after years of arrest and persecution and imprisonment - obviously for no reason whatever. But even beyond that, the film does well; indeed supremely well; in its first half-hour when we see a real-life story of Soviet life played out a la George Orwell's "1984". Is that the genius of Orwell, or does the film draw on the latter? I do not know the answer to that, but it will look staggering and shocking for many who give this work the time it assuredly deserves. As it happens, I'm an old and experienced "tales of life under communism" expert, so I admire the portrayal and presentation more than being surprised by it; but I know there are countless millions out there who will not conceive of the idea that that which Orwell encapsulated so amazingly was reality again and again and again under Stalin. And even Stalin's death did not bring an end to it fully, of course, but... Yevgenia becomes a kind of "unperson" by association, but it transpires that all those who brought about her downfall were also purged, and we watch them go down one by one. Hence the absolute need for films like this to be made ... and watched. Forgive me for this, but the second section of the film in the prison camp looks a tad more familiar - weird and authentic-looking mix of the cruel, crude and eccentrically enigmatic as it may be. But those who spent long years - even decades - of their lives in such places (assuming they actually survived at all), eventually found some weird kind of accommodation with the situation, as we see here. Never a particular Emily Watson fan was I, but here she does extremely well in the starring role, and what somehow keeps University Professor "Eugenia" going is her love of Russian literature and culture ... of all things. This fierce pride and determination is tangible in the film context. And our hero really does meet up (and fall in love) with a doctor of German origin shipped off to the Soviet Far East from the Volga region, and also imprisoned for a long stretch indeed. And so much of what we see here is true, and there is death and suffering and separation everywhere, and for years on end. As I say, it is perhaps hard to mess up such a gift of an epic tale as this, but Polish locations (with a touch of Polish-inspired film-making class), plus Watson and a number of other seasoned British and Polish actors, carry things along, and there are a host of meaningful directoral touches that leaves this art largely irreproachable. There is also most moving music, not least an extract from the ever-soulful Frederic Chopin. Had it maintained the utter brilliance of its first third, this film would have garnered a ten from me without hesitation. As it is a well-desrved 9! How to convey in one story the essence of decades of Stalin-induced misery> This is how...

This is an excellent historical drama based on the real memoirs of Evgenia Ginzburg. Her daughter was consulted, as well, and is mentioned in the credits. I appreciated the understated, non-sensationalist approach to the story and the script. They didn't have to sensationalize anything to make the story horrifying. Emily Watson proves again that she is an outstanding actress - she does a great job in this movie - academy award material. The other actors are also fantastic in their roles. It is a rare movie that depicts real-life events that most of us would rather not re-visit too often. But the lessons of this movie, and the lessons of history, are important, and this ugly part of history needs to be seen and acknowledged by as many people as possible, so we can prevent similar events from happening again. Franz Kafka, in his novel "The Trial," predicted the murders soon to come that were motivated by political paranoia, power-mad dictators, and bigotry. The inevitable, tragic results of the abuse of power are depicted bluntly in this movie. As unpleasant as it is to witness the events shown, it is also inspiring to see the true -life strength of will and character that enabled Evgenia Ginzburg to survive the ordeals she was forced to endure. May her memory be an inspiration for us all. Highly recommended.