If you hadn't noticed, Russia is back in the news, relevant like it hasn't been for several decades. It seems the perfect time to explore one of its darkest chapters and Armando Iannucci is here to make one of the most strangely relevant films of the year. It's desolate, ominous material, and the finished product is fascinating.

When the film opens Stalin seems in fine health, signing away the lives of perceived enemies. However (this is not a spoiler) he is soon dead and leaves behind a power vacuum. When it looks like the monstrous head of the secret police (NKVD), Beria, may become leader, a scramble begins to prevent this.

The cast is uniformly great, with the filmmaker making the spot on decision to allow the actors to keep their own accents: not a painful 'Russian' accent anywhere to be heard, and still we feel the diversity of the USSR. There are very fine performances from Jeffrey Tambor, Paddy Considine, and Michael Palin (who really ought to be in more films). The film is anchored by a pair of towering performances from Steve Buscemi and the utterly terrifying Simon Russell Beale, who are each given great dialogue to work with. However the film is almost stolen from this mighty ensemble by Jason Isaacs, whose war hero Georgy Zhukov has one of the finest entrances in recent years. He is on top form, consistently hilarious and stops the film from lagging in any capacity.

There has always been an air of desperation that undercuts Iannucci's comedy, be it in Alan Patridge's constant pursuit of the recognition and success he believes he deserves, or the scrabbling fury that Malcolm Tucker uses to contain whatever is the latest omnishambles in The Thick of It. Yet here the stakes are raised excruciatingly high. There is a stench of, well, death in The Death of Stalin, given greater impact because, broadly speaking, everything really happened. The people who die actually died. I have already had a debate with my colleague over whether this is a comedy (she says it is, I say it isn't). But if you need a reference point, imagine if Brazil had been based on a true story.

This is a brilliant work of cinema. The kind of bleak cinema that hits the back of the throat like Russian vodka. A particularly strong ensemble navigate the comedic moments as well as those of harrowing tragedy. It is a film that cries out for debate, that acts as a warning, one that entertains and chills in equal measures.