Movie Shot in Mexico Takes on Trotsky's Assassination Herald Tribune
go to original May 21, 2015

The Museo Casa de Leon Trotsky in Coyoacan, Mexico City (John Mitchell)

It's a tale of love, betrayal and history's most famous murder by ice pick.

The plot to assassinate Leon Trotsky, the Soviet revolutionary-turned-exiled dissident, in Mexico City in 1940, is at the heart of "El Elegido" ("The Chosen"), an upcoming movie that's set to wrap shooting in this capital in the coming days.

Told from the perspective of Ramon Mercader, the Spaniard who wielded the murder weapon, it recounts how the young communist recruited and trained by the Soviet secret service seduced an American woman who was close to Trotsky to get to his target.

"It's a very juicy story because it's the consummation of a great treachery. ... He betrays someone who has delivered her body and soul to him," director Antonio Chavarrias told The Associated Press during a visit to the set. "That's really suggestive. It adds complexity to the plot."

"El Elegido" stars Mexican actor Alfonso Herrera ("The Perfect Dictatorship") as Mercader; British stage veteran Henry Goodman as Trotsky; and Hannah Murray, best known for portraying the single-mom wildling Gilly in "Game of Thrones," as Sylvia Ageloff, the dupe who fell in love with the Spanish assassin.

Read the rest at Herald Tribune

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