Review: Putin's Witnesses

Vladimir Putin receives a warm welcome from his school teacher to her home

On New Year's Eve, 1999, then Russian President Boris Yeltsin made a surprise announcement on a television address. He said was resigning and that then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would become acting president, and in three months there would be an election.

For filmmaker Vitaly Mansky, he was only too eager to document this moment, asking his wife and daughters what they thought of this change in power.

 

His wife dreaded the news, and his oldest daughter equated Putin with Mao Zedong. Then he accosted his youngest daughter in the bath, who held her breath under water, refusing to comment. Did he know a year later their opinions were spot on?

Filmmaker Vitaly Mansky who now lives in Latvia

Instead of running a typical campaign with television ads and rallies, Putin hired Mansky to make a television documentary, following him as he went about his business in office. He was shown on International Women's Day visiting a textile factory mostly manned by women but he didn't speak to a single female worker. He also visits his school teacher in her home and gives her a big bouquet of roses, and kissing her like he would his own mother.


Mansky narrates the 107-minute film, explaining he did make the documentary that was shown on state television. But now looking at the footage again almost 20 years later, it seems to reveal more things that Mansky didn't see at first, which is why the film is called Putin's Witnesses.

Meanwhile the soundtrack is a haunting piano tune we hear over and over, a sense of foreboding that is very eerie.

Probably the most telling moment in Putin's Witnesses is on election day in 2000, when Mansky is at Putin's election headquarters. With narration, he introduces each person in the room and what role they played in Putin's campaign.

Many people in Putin's election team didn't stay long after

But then he adds this person or that person months later joined the opposition, or this person was later shot dead, or that person died at a young age... he includes Putin's wife and adds that years later he divorced her... it's all very shocking. No one stuck to him except for Dmitri Medvedev, who would later switch places with Putin so that he could become president again.

One of the first things Putin does in power as president is reinstate the melody of the Soviet national anthem that Yeltsin had scrapped, but now it had new lyrics, and a performance of the anthem is televised in an Easter television broadcast.

He also vetoed a motion in the lower house of parliament of removing the hammer and sickle on the "Victory Banner", the flag that Soviet troops raised over Berlin's Reichstag building on May 1, 1945 that came to symbolize the victory over Nazi Germany.

These small details show Putin's admiration or enthusiasm to return to Russia's Soviet past.

Another scene is a long conversation Mansky has with Putin in the back of a car. Putin tries to convince the filmmaker that after he finishes his term in office he will go back to living a normal life, away from the public eye and have the freedom to do whatever he wants.

The only time Putin wants Mansky to stop shooting video is after he does a length of the pool in the butterfly stroke, he gets out of the swimming pool and puts his hand over the camera lens.

Vitaly films Yeltsin at home watching election results

Mansky also follows Yeltsin at home on election night. His daughter is thrilled by the results because she has had a hand in getting Putin elected and calls for champagne to be opened. Yeltsin is pleased, but the smile turns into a frown when they wait for hours for Putin to call to thank him for giving him the opportunity to become the leader of Russia. Yeltsin would realize he was left in the dust.

After the screening of Putin's Witnesses, Mansky himself was at the screening at City Hall to big applause from the audience. He fielded questions from the audience, explaining that he and his family now lived in Latvia and that he was still able to go to Russia.

He says in 1999 no one really knew who Putin was (within a year his popularity rating went from zero to almost 50 percent), and Mansky used the opportunity to make the documentary about him to learn more about the incoming president. But in the film he admits he was not just a witness, but complicit in helping Putin become who he is.

Putin's Witnesses
Directed by Vitaly Mansky
107 minutes