Caridad became a fiery communist dedicated to the destruction of capitalism. Her son Ramón was also committed to the cause and, using his mother's connections, trained to become a deep-cover assassin in the late 1930s. Stalin wanted Leon Trotsky dead for political and personal reasons, and Ramón dedicated his life to that cause alone. Speaking perfect English, Mercader moved to New York and managed to meet and start a relationship with a young woman in Trotsky's inner circle. He eventually went with her to Mexico City. After a bungled attempt by other Stalinist agents, Mercader succeeded in killing his prey with an ice climber's pickaxe, and was captured. According to the witnesses here, Ramón's mother Caridad was waiting in a getaway car outside the Trotsky compound, but he didn't have a chance to escape.

We pay even closer attention to Storm the Skies' witnesses from this point on, as they become a resource as precious as the interviewees seen in Warren Beatty's 1980 Reds, the 1920s activists who remembered American communist John Reed. Most of the witnesses are not identified by name, and we have to listen to learn how they figure into the larger story. Convicted of murder in a Mexican court and sentenced to a long prison term, Ramón was almost released after four years, but his notorious mother made a trip to Mexico at the wrong time and attracted publicity that kept that from happening. In prison, Mercader was visited by the Spanish movie star Sara (Sarita) Montiel (!!!) who sympathized with his plight. It sounds impossible until we see Ms. Montiel in person providing her memories of the story. Mercader served his full 20 years, getting out just as Castro took Cuba. He split his time between Havana and Moscow and was given the Soviet Union's highest honor. Mercader married -- his wife remembers telling him to wear his medal so they could skip to the front of the lines in the supermarket. Caridad Mercader died, with the oath that as an individual egotist she was made to fight capitalism but no good at building socialism.

Storm the Skies provokes thought by giving us a point of view directly opposed to what we're used to hearing in the Western media. These citizens of the old Soviet Union look like retirees in a rest home, sweet-looking old folks still proud to be communists. They have no problem with the fact that Stalin destroyed Lenin and Trotsky's perpetually self-renewing revolution at the earliest opportunity. The witnesses do not mention that Stalin had several of Trotsky's relative murdered, even some of his own children. The docu does say that Trotsky was sexually unfaithful to his wife Natalia Sedowa, and states that the reason he had to stop living as a guest with Frida Kahlo was that Natalia discovered their affair.

As even more evidence of the selective memories and moral blindness of some of the witnesses, several insist that Ramón Mercader is a hero, and become misty-eyed at his memory. They compare Mercader to a soldier in a war, but he still comes off as a loathsome assassin, striking down a defenseless and harmless man. The only significant thing in his life was to use stealth, cruel deception and ruthless violence to murder on behalf of a ruthless dictator. Absolving Mercader opens a moral door to killing people wholesale or individually, on the basis of the ideas they promote or the thoughts they think.

Facets Video's DVD of Storm the Skies is a fine encoding of a program master produced by the Cineteca company. Although the 1996 film is not given an enhanced transfer; the image is sharp and the film photography from three continents is stunning. There are no extras, and the English subtitles on the mostly Spanish audio are removable.

On a scale of Excellent, Good, Fair, and Poor, Storm the Skies rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Very Good
Sound: Excellent
Packaging: Keep case
Reviewed: October 5, 2006