Wednesday, April 30, 2008

The Singing Revolution

As I've written before, I have a fascination with Eastern Europe. I've travelled there, and I know a fair bit about the history of the fall of the Soviet Empire. So naturally I had to go see The Singing Revolution, which opened theatrically in Toronto last weekend. I even dragged the long-suffering Mme Holiday along.

The Singing Revolution is about Estonia, a small country across the Baltic Sea from Finland, directly north of Latvia and Lithuania, and formerly the northwest corner of the Soviet Union. In the late '80s and early '90s, Estonia led the way among the Soviet-occupied nations in carving out independence from Moscow, and was the first to
actually declare itself an independent state during the August crisis that finished off the Soviet Union in 1991. The Estonians accomplished this in particularly Estonian fashion - quietly but firmly, simply gradually refusing to acknowledge any Soviet authority in their country. And, like the other Baltic nations, they express their national culture in song - hence, the Singing Revolution. The whole story of Baltic independence is magnificent and inspiring: three tiny peoples, nearly defeated over 50 years of brutal occupation, staging a peaceful revolt against the great Russian bear, and winning. It would make a great documentary.

Too bad this one ain't it. The Singing Revolution, produced and directed by James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty, is a pedantic recitation of facts that bleeds all the drama and emotion out of the story. Less than five minutes into the film,
I knew we were in for a long night: the filmmakers had started in on a chronological history of Estonia, complete with title cards announcing each year. We hear about the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the Soviet invasion, the Nazi invasion, the Soviet re-invasion... all told in pedantic, cliché-ridden narration. There is so much storming across borders, I could have sworn I was watching the War Channel. And a whole cascade of Estonian names - leaders of this faction and that one, names that are important only to Estonian historians and schoolchildren studying for a test. There are about a dozen interview subjects who appear throughout the film, but aside from their names and occupations, we are told next to nothing about them until the end credits. Turns out, their stories would have been quite interesting to hear: the guy who spent 30 years in Siberia, the singing revolution leader whose parents had been powerful Estonian Communists, etc. This should have been a film about them, not a laundry list of events out of a high-school textbook.

But what's even worse is that the film takes the narrowest possible view of history. Estonia wasn't the only nation in the former Soviet Union to stand up against the regime in the years after Gorbachev declared glasnost and perestroika. Revolts were happening all over, from Latvia to Uzbekistan. I'm not suggesting that this should have been a film about the fall of the Soviet Union, but by focusing on Estonia to the exlusion of any other former Soviet republics, the filmmakers fail to show how the Estonians are different - why their culture and national character produced the "singing revolution." What's interesting about the Estonians is that, compared to their Baltic neighbours, the Latvians and Lithuanians, they were quietly pragmatic. Instead of making demands and picking fights with Moscow, they simply started acting as if they were independent. That approach is far more interesting if contrasted with what was happening elsewhere.

The film also gives scant credit to Gorbachev for the reforms that made the Estonian national awakening possible, and makes just passing mention of the Russians, led by Boris Yeltsin, who finished off the Soviet Union by standing up to the tanks when the hardliners staged a coup against Gorbachev. T
he film would have been far more subtle and convincing if we'd heard from some non-Estonians: from Gorbachev, for instance, and from the ethnic-Russian opposition in Estonia, who are charicatured in the film and get all of one brief clip.

Instead, The Singing Revolution takes the narrow view that you'd normally hear only from hardcore Estonian nationalists. Is the rest of the world going to be enlightened by this Estonian-Sunday-school-style history lesson ? Or are we just going to be put to sleep?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you missed the point of the film. Sounds like you failed to hear the music and the singing, hence "singing revolution".

eric said...

Oh, I heard the singing. If only there had been more of it, and a lot fewer names, dates and places. And what singing there was, was shot and edited for minimum dramatic impact.

Kate Coe said...

But it's a documentary--it's supposed to be dull.