Clashing worldviews in modern-day Russia alternate in Estonian documentarian Marianna Kaat’s The Last Relic, as citizens in Yekaterinburg, the fourth-largest city, gather to celebrate the state’s might, or publicly protest for change. Screening at DOK Leipzig after a world premiere at Hot Docs in Toronto, the film is constructed around observed spectacle rather than detailed analysis, for a broad-strokes but visually impressive vision of a nation intent on glorifying its imperial past as it struggles to shape a hopeful future. Kaat, who previously made Pit No. 8 (2010) and was a producer on leading director Vitaly Mansky’s Close Relations (2016), documentaries that both address the fraught legacy of Soviet power in Ukraine, is well-attuned to the political fault lines that have shaken history in eastern Europe, and presents a militarised Russia that speaks the language of brute force as expedient recourse. An opening title points out that in 1918, close to a century prior, the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and his family were executed on the site in Yekaterinburg where the Church of the Blood now stands. As a framing event, it suggests a nation in which political power has been built on a legacy of murderous violence.
Kaat began shooting in 2017. The footage, predominantly from several years ago, already feels a world away from the Russia that in recent developments has seen a mass exodus across its borders of young citizens with the means to do so in the face of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, war conscription, and a hard crackdown on dissent that has driven what scant protest there was further underground. But the film does not feel outdated. Rather, it succinctly sets out the apathy and breakdown of civic society that underpins the current situation.
Igor, a 20-year-old member of Left Bloc, a social movement endeavouring to unite activists from leftist organisations to work together, says many Russians are in a “phase of enlightened cynicism,” where they know that the status quo is bad, and widely discuss corruption among themselves, but are resigned to it and feel powerless to change anything. It’s at this point that an employee at the cafe he’s in interrupts the interview to question his affiliations and ask him to shut down the discussion — a telling snapshot of the climate of fear in Russia that even then meant most citizens who were privately against Putin kept their heads down and did not publicly voice their political views, to avoid any unpleasant repercussions. Igor is careful to say Left Bloc do not aim to overturn the regime, but change society. Their demonstration against the demolition of a television tower unites a tiny pocket of collective action, but is sparsely attended.
Vague titles such as “Rules” and “Solidarity” divide segments along the lines of allegiance and resistance. Scenes of activists calling for the release of political prisoners, including opposition leader Alexei Navalny, are interspersed with the ornamental trappings of a strong-arm society that’s stuck in the past, from Sverdlovsk’s annual ball of cadets, an old-world, starchy affair of uniforms and classical music, to the May Day parade, and a marathon dedicated to the tsar’s memory with teams of bailiffs, prison guards, soldiers and riot police units. Processions and ceremonial gatherings honour a traditional concept of heroic masculinity ready to defend the motherland, while Orthodox Church services impose a further, ritualised framework of meaning on an otherwise unstable society.
An older generation of opposition activists are also afforded more personalised screen time, as they wrangle with a legal system that obstructs their free political expression, undergoing trial for unauthorised protest, advocating for other demonstrators’ rights, and taking packages to allies who are doing time in prison. A cafeteria worker who works fifteen-hour shifts spars with them, accusing them of being all talk, and declaring that she doesn’t vote anymore, as one cannot win against a system of politicians with bad intentions. It’s perhaps the film’s most poignant moment — because it encapsulates the death of genuine idealism, under a regime of shallow, propagandistic pomp.
Director, Writer, Producer: Marianna Kaat
Editor: Jesper Osmund
Cinematography: Kacper Czubak
Score: Lauri-Dag Tuur
Sound: Boris Frolov
Sound Design: Israel Banuelos
Production companies: Baltic Film Production (Estonia), Ten Thousand Images (Norway)
Sales: Rise And Shine World Sales
Venue: DOK Leipzig
In Russian
104 minutes
