Who
lost Russia? To answer that question, Sergei Loznitsa harkens back to the day
it appeared to be won. In what remains his finest hour, Boris Yeltsin rallied
fellow Russians against the hardline Communists who had deposed Gorbachev in a
coup that came well after the people started to believe they could be free. In
the newly re-christened St. Petersburg, opposition to the coup was spearheaded
by the reformist mayor, Anatoly Sobchak, who is quite a tricky figure to take
stock of, considering he was Putin’s mentor, who would eventually die under suspicious
circumstances. There is both heady promise and strange flashes of foreboding in
Loznitsa’s boots-on-the-ground documentary The
Event (trailer
here),
which screens as part of the 2016 Doc Fortnight at MoMA.
The
images from Moscow are maybe more familiar to us, but the backdrop in St.
Petersburg could not be more perfect. That is indeed the Winter Palace. Since
the hardcore Communist coup-plotters had taken control of all media and
communications, information is spotty on the square. To convey a sense of their
confusion, Loznitsa periodically punctuates The
Event with extracts from Swan Lake,
the official soundtrack to internal Soviet strife, which the conspirators were
duly broadcasting, being creatures of habit.
When
addressing the crowd, Sobchak sure looks and sounds like a man of destiny.
However, if you see a weasely-looking aide in the background who looks like
Putin, it probably is. In fact, it is rather ironic to hear Sobchak rail against
the dangers of resurgent Stalinism in 1991, knowing he would later proclaim his
protégé to be the second coming of Stalin, as if that were a good thing.
(Ironically, he was right both times.)
The Event is a somewhat
demanding film that rewards viewers observant enough to pick up on little
details buried within the tableaux of mass demonstrations. Loznitsa does not
spoon-feed much to the audience, but he closes with a sharp reminder none of
the old regime’s crimes were never prosecuted. Clearly, he leaves us to wonder
just how discrete and firewalled the incoming government would be from the
former oppressive system.
