Director: David Borenstein
Cast: Pavel Talankin
Screenplay: David Borenstein
90 mins. Not Rated.

How does someone get a fair look at Russia? From outside, we see the stories of its leader, Vladimir Putin, and we often see the country as a gigantic threat to democracy. From within, we hear about the news cycle churn and how often the citizens are subjected to half-truths or even propaganda. How do we reconcile the two worlds? For Pasha Talankin, this becomes the central idea of his story, one from within the borders of Russia, challenging and upending the worldview and giving us a boots-on-the-ground look at life behind the facade. It makes for an intelligent and frustrating viewing experience, one that is completely necessary all the same.

Mostly set in Karabash (known as Russia’s Toxic Town), Pasha Talankin is a Russian teacher/videographer, a hero to some of the outsider students at the Karabash Primary School where he works. He’s a model employee and a good son (he even works with his mother, the school librarian), but in 2022, when Russian forces invaded Ukraine, Pasha was asked to take video footage of the school’s teachings in order to spread the propaganda surrounding the invasion. During these filming sessions, he can see that some students take to the propagandist views with ease, listening and trusting the leadership at the school, while others are concerned and confused and struggle to understand. For Pasha, this use of his skills stretches far past Russian nationalism and into the realm of reframing history at the very moment it unfolds. So, Pasha uses his skills as a videographer to capture the propaganda, the truth behind it, and the effects of this limited and controlled news cycle with the hope that one day, others might finally see what he sees.

From the very start, Mr. Nobody Against Putin places itself as one of the most dangerous documents of the Russia-Ukraine conflict and a damning bit of evidence against the state of Russian politics. While most people who would seek out this documentary will already somewhat suspect many of the revelations in the film, the act of seeing it with one’s own eye really translates the horrors of Putin’s “ignorance is bliss” mentality. Talankin’s capturing of forced patriotic songs, poems, and spectacle is haunting for this viewer who spent so much of his youth asking questions about the world and trying to challenge his mind. I’ve always been open to the conversation with people I disagree with, as I feel this makes for at least a better understanding of one another (not a bold statement, I understand), so seeing this stripped away from Russian youth is incredibly dark and disturbing. It’s often hard to even reconcile Putin’s lies from the outside, claims about the price of gas in Russia and other countries as well as marches in the United States in support of Russia’s efforts to help in Ukraine. These ludicrous claims take hold when all other responsive and critical journalism is silenced, and it works. We’ve seen even here is America how easy it is for the little evil devices we carry in our pockets to feed us only the information that gets a response, oftentimes an angry response. Just try it; watch an hour of whatever news station you hate the most and see how different it looks, but imagine that on the scale of an entire country. Folks like Pasha Talankin are rare, and that’s why his story matters so much in a world where the message is simple: the other guys are bad, we’re good, and maybe one day you can be lucky enough to die for your country.

As the dangers mount, and as Talankin wrestles with speaking out and the dangers that follow, he says “Love for your country means saying, ‘We have a problem.’” It’s a simple and poignant statement that outlines one of the cardinal issues with Nationalism. To deny imperfections is to avoid the possibility of a more perfect world. That’s the central lesson of Mr. Nobody Against Putin, and it’s one that Americans desperately need to hear in this historical moment. Mr. Nobody Against Putin may falter in filling its 90-minute run time, occasionally repeating the same ideas, but what’s here is so important and powerful that it begs to be seen if only to remind how easily any statement can become “truth” if it’s just repeated long enough. Seek out Mr. Nobody Against Putin, it’s a hard and frustrating film that deserves your attention.

4/5
-Kyle A. Goethe