PARK CITY, Utah—Karabash is a small city (population: 1,000) nestled deep in Russia’s industrial heartland, and thanks to its copper smelting plant, it’s also, according to UNESCO, “the most toxic place on Earth.”
Amazingly, in Mr. Nobody Against Putin, which premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, it manages to become even more noxious, courtesy of Vladimir Putin’s transformation of the nation’s education system into a propagandistic arm of the state. An endearing, infuriating, and despairing non-fiction portrait of a country’s final descent into oppressive authoritarianism, all of it shot covertly by one brave teacher, it’s a striking work of rebel cinema.
Pavel “Pasha” Talankin is the event coordinator at Karabash Primary School #1, filming and organizing all major school events, such as the annual graduation ceremony. A round-faced young man with glasses and an amiable demeanor, Pasha is, by all accounts, the cool liberal teacher whose office is the favorite hang-out spot for many kids, who view his enclave as a space where they can freely be themselves.
Director David Borenstein’s Mr. Nobody Against Putin is culled from the hours upon hours of material Pasha shot at his place of employment. Though some of it was simply produced during the course of his normal day-to-day, much of it was eventually created with an ulterior motive: to capture and expose the radical changes to curriculum and culture demanded by Putin.
While a YouTuber decries Karabash as “the most depressing place I’ve ever been,” Pasha voices unwavering affection for his school and hometown, including its rain-streaked Soviet buildings and its central plant’s network of pipes. Pasha is a patriot in the true sense of the term, but it’s not long before he finds himself at odds with the myriad self-anointed “Patriots” determined to help Putin reshape Russia in his tyrannical image.
In February 2022, the president launches his “special military operation” against Ukraine, and at the same time, he passes the Federal Patriotic Education Policy. This decree stipulates that children must now recite patriotic songs and speeches, instructors are required to teach pro-war lessons, and morning drills involving marching and flag-waving are obligatory. Moreover, as the school’s cinematographer, Pasha has to film all of this and then upload his work to a government website in order to verify compliance with the law.
Not everyone is on board with this policy—or, as one educator proves, even capable of properly pronouncing its terminology (like “demilitarization”). Yet others are all too eager to toe the party line. Pavel Abdulmanov, whom Pasha dubs a “true believer,” happily lectures his students about the fact that “State policy in Ukraine is decided by radicals, nationalists, and neo-Nazis. Everything that unites us have been brought under attack.” In a later interview, Abdulmanov cites a variety of monstrous Stalin-era murderers—including Lavrentiy Beria, the “father of the Gulag system,” who often participated in his underlings’ torture sessions—as the historical figures he most admires. When asked why he reveres these wretched individuals, he replies, “I think they had interesting jobs.”
Uninterested in being a pawn in the regime, Pasha quits his gig. No sooner has he done so, however, than one of his online posts receives a response from a foreign film producer who’s interested in having him make a movie, in secret, about Russia’s education makeover.
Realizing he already has the “perfect cover” for this assignment, Pasha withdraws his resignation and sets about documenting the many ways his once-beloved school has mutated into an extension of Putin’s warmongering machine. It doesn’t take long for things to go from bad to worse—one minute, Abdulmanov is informing his charges that those who don’t love their motherland (which they should adore like their biological moms) are “parasites,” and the next, Wagner mercenaries are conducting assemblies during which they explain the dangers of mines and let boys try on military gear.
In perhaps the most jaw-dropping moment in a doc full of them, Pasha films a schoolwide grenade-throwing competition—a pseudo-athletic contest that wholly obliterates the line between education and recruitment. Indoctrination quickly becomes the school’s primary purpose, and as an outwardly anti-war figure in this close-knit community (complete with a democracy flag hanging in his office), Pasha slowly winds up in the crosshairs. His stance puts his career in danger and sabotages his relationships with many current and former students, who have either been brainwashed into believing that joining the army is a noble duty or are grappling with the loss of their brothers and fathers. Worse, it puts his life in jeopardy, thereby motivating him to consider fleeing to safer shores.
Putin’s propaganda is the root of most evil in Mr. Nobody Against Putin, but so too is Russian culture and history. Hearing her son’s criticisms of the administration, Pasha’s librarian mother shrugs and says that Russians have always gone to war and “people love to shoot each other.” It’s this mindset, coupled with Putin’s jingoistic media and schoolroom blitzes and a lack of alternative employment opportunities, that motivates many boys to enlist—until, that is, Putin simply begins drafting them into service.
In narration and to-the-camera addresses, Pasha exudes despair over all this. Shockingly, however, few others in Karabash feel likewise, or at least are willing to express their opposition publicly; instead, their grief is kept off the record, although Pasha’s forbidden audio recording of a funeral, marked by a mother’s wailing, indicates that misery abounds.
In an online military video, a Russian commander informs his troops, “All of you will die, but know one thing: Mother Russia will never forget us”—a lie that’s no different than those being foisted upon the impressionable youth at Pasha’s school. Mr. Nobody Against Putin exposes the insidiousness of Putin’s government, whose desire for conquest and expansion can only be fully executed with the aid of a population willing to see the world as he does. Pasha’s film, consequently, is nothing short of an act of rebellion.
Whether playing the United States’ national anthem (sung by Lady Gaga, no less) over the school loudspeakers, or sneaking his footage out of Russia so the world might see what’s taking place behind Putin’s new Iron Curtain, he demonstrates that resistance begins with individuals and is carried out at great, courageous risk.
