Review: Gorbachev. Heaven

Gorbachev's sad, quiet life is captured in Manksy's documentary

 

Back in the 2019 Hong Kong International Film Festival I watched the documentary Putin's Witnesses by Vitaly Mansky, giving viewers insight into the Russian President and how he functions. Mansky also made it to the city to talk about his film afterwards, feeling free to talk about authoritarianism, though who knew Hong Kong would be quickly sliding into this situation two years later?

Mansky has produced another documentary called Gorbachev. Heaven, about the former leader who ended the Soviet Union, but what has happened to him and Russia since then?

Just before the film started, the director sent a personal video message to viewers in Hong Kong, saying at first he was sad he was unable to come to the city to attend the festival because of the pandemic. 

The dining room only has one person eating

Then Mansky said that he keenly watched the 2019 protests and how the people were trying to protect their freedoms, and so he believed they would be interested in watching Gorbachev. Heaven, seeing how freedom that Gorbachev gave when he declared the end of the Soviet Union, soon dissipated.

Not having seen recent pictures or videos of Gorbachev, it was quite shocking to see the 90-year-old overweight and bloated, and in frail health. He uses a walker to get around, very slowly. Luckily his former aides are there to help him, otherwise he is very much alone. They even helped install an elevator in his home outside Moscow, that the state lent for him to use "temporarily", in other words, until death.

Mansky is off camera the whole time, asking Gorbachev lots of questions, recounting his personal life as well as his political career without using any archival news footage, though there are a few footnotes of people mentioned to help people understand the context of the conversations.

In the mid-1980s Gorbachev introduced perestroika, or democratic reforms, which led to three eastern European countries free from Communist rule (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania), and eventually the collapse of the Soviet Union caused by the August 1991 coup that forced Gorbachev to resign, and Boris Yeltsin took power.

Lots of food (and booze) is featured in the film

While Mansky admires Gorbachev, he also doesn't let him get away easily, asking him tough questions about the messy end of the USSR, and the former leader doesn't give straight answers, to which Mansky prods him more, and Gorbachev refuses to reply, saying he's answered them already.

But perhaps it's the long shots of Gorbachev that give viewers a better idea of him these days. Mansky focuses his camera a lot on Gorbachev's face and his hands look so big on the big screen. He likes to eat too -- he's seen snacking, discussing the dinner menu with his chef, dining with friends to mark the New Year. And yes there's vodka and beer too.

Always in the background, though, is Vladimir Putin, usually on television. Just before midnight January 1, 2020, Putin gives a sombre address on TV and he finishes just as the clock strikes 12. "Very precise," remarks Gorbachev, and resumes eating his late night dinner.

Also having a presence in the film is Gorbachev's wife Raisa, who died in 1999 of leukemia. There are portraits of her in his home and office, and he speaks fondly of her, saying, "the meaning of life is gone", though it has been 20 years without her.

Mansky with Gorbachev during filming

He sings a song a few times that he would sing to his wife, which talks of a forest being heaven, and hence the title of the documentary. One scene shows Gorbachev visiting her grave and notes he will be buried with her.

Watching Gorbachev. Heaven is his last will and testament, and it is sad to see the leader who so profoundly changed Russia to be mostly alone, frustrated by his physical limitations and politically shut out, as he is the polar opposite to Putin.

He does speak out, but the media are scared of publishing his opinions. There isn't much he can do about that.

Nevertheless, Manksy's portrait of Gorbachev is an intimate one and good record of his life -- in his words.

Gorbachev. Heaven

Directed by Vitaly Mansky

100 minutes

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