"The Assassination of Trotsky" is an interesting near-miss of a movie about the last days of former Russian revolutaionary Leon Trotsky(a very fine performance by Richard Burton) in exile in Mexico City in 1940. It may get the facts straight but it does not go far below the surface in depicting the time and place or
the characters who with the exception of the Americans are in exile because of war and/or fascism.(I was disappointed that director Joseph Losey did not have any special insight here since he was blacklisted in the 1950's and forced to find work overseas.) A couple of scenes stand out, especially the bullfighting, but this is a wasted opportunity to explore the nature of revolutionary violence and how that can turn out to be a double-edged sword.
June 13, 2007
