Leonid Brezhnev | icareviews

Meeting

Werner Herzog gained intimate access to the last leader of the Soviet Union for this watchable documentary. Herzog, who comes across as the consummate dork throughout, mainly confines his questioning to the realm of historical platitude, but crosses the line into outright tastelessness in prodding the aged Gorbachev to discuss his agony over his wife’s death from leukemia: “How much do you miss her?” Even so, the film, combining interview segments with archival footage, does manage to produce a few moments of interest, with Herzog’s thesis presenting Gorbachev as a tragic figure deserving of audiences’ sympathy. Oddly, the elder statesman is one of those individuals who looks like a completely different person in old age, with even his signature birthmark seeming to have changed color over time – so let the retarded Paul-is-dead impostor conspiracy-theorizing commence!

3.5 out of 5 stars. Ideological Content Analysis indicates that Meeting Gorbachev is:

Anti-Yeltsin. Yeltsin was a “reckless type”, Gorbachev laments, reflecting, “I should have sent him off somewhere.”

Pro-German. “I believe we have a common destiny with the Germans,” says Gorbachev, who grew up with German neighbors. “I personally feel that they are our closest friends.” Ultra-cuck Herzog, however, makes sure to remind viewers of the 25 million citizens of the Soviet Union killed by the Nazis during the Second World War.

Anti-nuke and anti-Trump. Gorbachev remains committed to nuclear disarmament, and Margaret Thatcher emerges as an antagonistic force in her more belligerent nuclear stance. “It’s a shame that the current American president declared he will modernize their nuclear arsenal,” observes Horst Teltschik, National Security Advisor to German Chancellor Helmut Kohl.

Pro-NATO and anti-Putin. Teltschik downplays the threat that NATO poses to Russia. “But we have to get back to having reasonable discussions with Russia,” says Reagan Secretary of State George Shultz, “and probably that takes some sort of a jolt for Mr. Putin to realize that the hostility is not good […]” Disappointingly, Gorbachev is not permitted to say much of anything about Russia under Putin.

Socialist! “More democracy – that was our first and foremost goal,” says Gorbachev. “I also wanted more socialism!” The film does allow, however, for “errors in centralized planning” having contributed to the Soviet Union’s demise. Polish Solidarity leader Lech Walesa is accused of “sinister reasoning” in his determination to take advantage of Gorbachev’s sincere desire for reform. “He really believed that he could reform communism,” Walesa scoffs. “Of course, I and many others knew communism couldn’t be reformed.” “Rather than dissolving the Union,” Gorbachev believes, “we should have given the republics more rights.”

Rainer Chlodwig von K.

Rainer is the author of Drugs, Jungles, and Jingoism.

The Ideological Content Analysis 30 Days Putsch:

30 Reviews in 30 Days

DAY SIXTEEN

Red Army tells the intriguing story of the Soviet hockey system – the players, the bureaucrats, and the sport’s utilization for patriotic propaganda purposes under Brezhnev. Star performers like Viacheslav Fetisov, whose reminiscences form the core of this exceptional documentary, contributed to the development of an intricate, distinctively cooperative hockey style as contrasted with the rougher, more individualistic Canadian-American model. While loved and idolized by their people, Soviet athletes, as Red Army makes painfully clear, did not enjoy the freedom and the celebrity lifestyle associated with sports in the United States.

A participant in the celebrated Miracle on Ice of 1980, Fetisov and his teammates went on to win the Soviet Union its sixth and seventh gold medals at the 1984 and 1988 Winter Olympics. Fetisov was beaten and harassed by authorities before finally being able to emigrate to the U.S., where he at first had difficulty adjusting to an unappreciative American system. In 1995 he was traded by the New Jersey Devils to the Detroit Red Wings, whom he helped to Stanley Cup victories in 1997 and 1998, largely through a recreation of the successful five-man formation, the “Russian Five” or “Russian symphony”, that had worked so well for the Soviet team.

One criticism of Red Army is that it treats the propagandistic agenda of Soviet sports culture as if this was somehow unique to the communist experience – as if sports in United States, for instance, do not convey the official myths of this decaying society. The U.S. distinguishes itself with the cultural Marxist flavor of its spectator sports, with team members of all different races, sexual orientations, and national origins coming together for a single purpose and teaching not pride in one nation or race, but multicultural meritocracy and allegiance to uniforms. “Spectator sports today is used as a perfume to hide the aroma of our decaying society,” writes Harrison Elings at The Occidental Observer. “It has ushered in an age of sports ritualization. It is used as an escape mechanism for a lost identity, an identity which now accepts and believes in the entrance and mixture of all races into all Western societies. It is Exhibit A for successful multiculturalism and interracial harmony and cooperation.”

5 stars. Ideological Content Analysis indicates that Red Army is:

3. Anti-materialistic. To its credit, Red Army does not stoop to glorifying the gaudy, gangsterish switch to capitalism in the 1990s. “Different mentality. Different culture,” Fetisov says in reflecting on his return to his formerly communist homeland. “We kind of forget about the patriotism. We [are] kind of ashamed [of] what we was before.” Furthermore, he confesses, “We lost something. We lost our pride. We lost our soul.” What Red Army neglects to tell the viewer, however, is just how Jewish the criminal Russian nineties were.

2. Zionist. Directed by a very self-consciously Jewish immigrant’s son, Gabe Polsky, Red Army is comparatively well-behaved in its cautious treatment of Vladimir Putin’s Russia, but the choice to include one particular clip from journalist Vladimir Pozner is very telling. “Much of the problems” – that is, in the Russia of today – “are still anchored in that [totalitarian] past,” he says, leaving to viewers’ imaginations what “problems” Russia has. This is something of a throwaway statement in the context of the full-length documentary, but crucial in the marketing of the film to the public, as millions of Americans have heard this remark about Russia’s alleged Soviet-Putin continuity “problems” in the widely seen Red Army trailer included on many 2014 Sony Pictures Classics releases. Asked by an audience member at a Toronto Film Festival Q & A why no Russian filmmaker had previously made a film about the Soviet hockey system, Polsky responded, “maybe because [of] some of the politics in the country, they might just – it’s not possible.” The insinuation of this vague reply is that Putinist Russia is some oppressive bastion of censorship preventing the production of intellectually satisfying hockey documentaries.

1. Pro-immigration, reinforcing the notion that immigrants have valid reasons for moving to the United States and attempting to find a better life. Fetisov, because of his high achievements and non-threatening genetics, presents an unusually appealing immigrant narrative. Some NHL personnel were wary of the sudden influx of Russian players after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and Red Army includes a sound bite from one such nativist who suggests the imports are stealing American jobs. This, however, the film implies, was just a form of bigotry that had to be won over. “They’re playing for us and they’re good,” one hockey fan exults after Fetisov and his countrymen hit their stride with the Detroit Red Wings.

Rainer Chlodwig von Kook

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