An Ordinary Execution (12a)

Starring: Marina Hands, André Dussollier

Film of the week is this dark French psychodrama set during the last days of Stalin's reign. Marina Hands (superb) plays a doctor trying to go unnoticed in a society of mutual dread where a neighbour or colleague might "denounce" you to the authorities at any moment.

But tales of her healing touch have spread and one night she is taken away, not to the infamous Lubyanka prison, but to the Kremlin to attend the ailing Comrade Stalin himself. André Dussollier gives an extraordinary impersonation of Uncle Joe, an old man racked with pain but still as watchful and deadly as a snake. It's possible to read Marc Dugain's film as a sort of black fairytale – an innocent young woman enters the lair of a beast – yet it is ingrained with sufficient detail to stand as a chilling document of one man's murderous caprice.