Paradise, on Klassiki

Fossil fuels are the only things propping up the Russian economy right now, so don’t expect Putin to help reduce carbon emissions. Keep in mind, he was also a KGB agent, when the USSR was one of the dirtiest polluters on Earth. As usual, Russia’s regional ethnic minorities pay the price. Thanks to record high temperatures, northeast Siberia was plagued with unprecedented forest fires in 2021, but the national government in Moscow supplied no assistance. It wasn’t an oversight. That was policy. The hardscrabble residents of Shologon must face the advancing flames alone in Alexander Abaturov’s documentary, Paradise, which premieres tomorrow on Klassiki as the “Pick of the Week.”

Unfortunately, the Taiga region where Shologon is located had been designated one of Russia’s inaptly named special “control” zones. That means the national government will withhold support if they believe the potential costs of fighting fires are greater than the benefits of saving the endangered areas. Somehow, Shologon was fortunate enough to get Pavel, a forest fire expert temporarily assigned to them, but all the labor involved comes from the village. (To be fair, Pavel appears willing to roll up his sleeves and pitch in too.)

Although Abaturov takes an editorially restrained, highly observational approach, he still captures some very dramatic footage of the wildfires encroaching on Shologon—mostly just by leaning out of car windows and filming the villages as the desperately trying to set backfires and firebreaks. The villagers do so largely unprotected, as was presumably true for Abaturov as well. The air and skies often look ominously orange and smoky, which is not the result of filters or any sort of augmentation (as New Yorkers will remember from when the Canadian forest fires turned our skyline a sickly shade of amber last year.)

Like Pavel, Abaturov clearly sympathizes with the citizens of Shologon. The current regime badly exploits its regional minorities, definitely including the Turkic and Mongolian people of Siberia. In 2021, Putin’s government turned their backs on them, during their time of crisis. Today, the hardscrabble provinces are disproportionately likely to serve as cannon-fodder, because they cannot afford the estimated five to seven thousand dollar bribes necessary to buy their way out of conscription.

Even though Abaturov’s almost ethnographic style does prioritize establishing individual personalities, he successfully conveys a sense of the community. He and cinematographer Paul Guilhaume also vividly and viscerally capture the ferocious power of the fire (“the dragon”) and the constant dread it causes for the uneasy residents. This is one of the rare documentaries that would benefit from a big screen.

Although billed as an environmental documentary, it is just as much an expose of the inequities that are a fact of life in today’s Russia. Arguably, Abaturov, Guilhaume, and company might have braved worse than the flames (which certainly represented a significant risk) while filming. Enthusiastically recommended for the environmentally conscious and the geopolitically aware, Paradise starts streaming tomorrow (8/22) on Klassiki.