Nov 14, 2019
Hi everyone!
Welcome back for another catchup review, from yet another favorite filmmaker of mine. Werner Herzog has been an absolute force of nature within the film industry, making shorts, feature-length films, and my favorite, documentaries. As part of the 2017 DLM Challenge, I watched five of his films, and each one was as thought-provoking as the subject demanded, with his characteristic, slightly depressed outlook on humanity. For two documentaries we have reviewed for the podcast, however, check out “Ballad of the Little Soldier” (Episode #285) and “Into the Abyss” (Episode #053), which definitely reinforce his dismal outlook.
Before the review, we’ll have a promo from the whole crew at Dice Tower Theatre. Every episode, the cast recreates an audio drama based on a shared tabletop role-playing experience. It is wonderfully produced and highly bingeable, especially if you like fantasy stories. Don’t miss their guest review here at One Movie Punch for 1932’s “The Mummy” (Episode #617), where the penalties for breaking character are quite severe indeed!
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Here we go!
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Today’s movie is “Meeting Gorbachev”, directed by Werner Herzog and André Singer, and written by Werner Herzog. The film looks at the life of Mikhail Gorbachev, the eighth and final president of the Soviet Union before its dissolution into its member states, including extensive clips from three interviews with Gorbachev himself.
No spoilers. Just go read history.
Before we get started with today’s film, which covers the time when Herzog and Singer met Gorbachev, I thought I would recount my experience meeting Gorbachev in 1992, just after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. I was part of a gifted kid’s program at our local elementary school, working in a special group on a weekly basis to develop independent studies on various topics. I learned about farming, marine mammals, dinosaurs, computers, and sleight-of-hand magic, but the program was transformed into a problem-solving group. The reward for finishing the program in my last year, however, was a field trip to Chicago, where one of our advisors was prescient enough to know that Gorbachev was in town, and where he was staying. After a visit to a couple museums, we headed over to the hotel lobby and camped out in the middle. Moments later, press flooded the lobby, and Mr. Gorbachev, seeing an excellent photo opportunity, immediate walked towards us kids to shake all our hands. I didn’t know just how lucky I was to meet him then, but I definitely know how lucky I am now.
Contrary to most Herzog films, “Meeting Gorbachev” is a surprisingly uplifting film, despite the many significant historical events being covered. Herzog does his best work when he has a personal connection to the subject, and in this case, it’s clear Herzog has a huge admiration for Gorbachev. My understanding of Russian politics in 1992 was largely based on the US propaganda at the time, that Reagan had single-handedly ended the Cold War, tore down the Berlin Wall, and had defeated the Soviet Union with nothing more than an American flag. Anyone outside the United States, of course, knew it was a much more difficult and complex process, one that happened in large part because of Gorbachev’s efforts to reform the Soviet Union before the collapse, including championing German Reunification when many others had given up.
Herzog understands this complexity and walks us first though Gorbachev’s early life in a remote farming community, then as a nascent party leader within the Communist Party, then through a series of deaths, humorously covered by Herzog and Singer, became the president of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev was often demonized by the United States, as part of the usual Cold War messaging, but he was definitely a man of the Soviet people, deciding to learn about the problems throughout the country by meeting with the people, then touring the world as part of a Soviet delegation to seek answers to his country’s problems, and eventually enacting Glasnost and Perestroika. In his interviews with Gorbachev, Herzog asks a lot of pointed questions about his history, especially asking if the Soviet Union’s fall was inevitable or not, and without spoiling the answer, it’s a lot more complex than one might think.
Herzog and Singer also feature a number of other perspectives on Gorbachev from outside the United States, again with much more complex analysis of how history unfolded than anything I was taught in school or was reported on our news broadcasts. I still shock people when I tell them that Russia lost upwards of 27 million people in World War II, about an eighth of their population depending on estimates, and doing more to stop the Nazis than the United States finally joining the war after Pearl Harbor. Folks looking back now on Gorbachev appreciate the reformer he ended up being, and the challenges he inherited from decades of party corruption, while many here just know him as the guy with the funny birthmark.
I think it’s especially important for folks to learn about Russia now with all the obsessive red-baiting and Russia-baiting happening by mainstream personalities. Don’t take that as me writing off foreign involvement in our election process or giving the current Russian government a pass for questionable actions since Yeltsin left office. It’s important to have an accurate and diverse picture of Russian history and society, so we can understand exactly who is responsible for those actions, as opposed to a general blame of “Russia”, in the same way that other countries sometimes generalize blame of the “United States”, when it is really the billionaires who control our society as well. Herzog and Gorbachev both lament the current state of affairs in the world.
“Meeting Gorbachev” is a solid documentary from master filmmaker Werner Herzog, that is more informative than insightful compared to his other work. Herzog walks us through the life of Gorbachev, and by doing so, the later history of the Soviet Union, outlining his major accomplishments and his failures, but leaves interpretation more up to the viewer, even while sharing his own opinions along the way. Documentary fans, or anyone looking to learn more about the last president of the Soviet Union, should definitely check out this film.
Rotten Tomatoes: 89% (CERTIFIED FRESH)
Metacritic: 74
One Movie Punch: 8.2/10
“Meeting Gorbachev” (2018) is not rated and is currently playing on Hulu.