WATCHED - Mr Nobody Against Putin

Pavel Talankin is a teacher in an ordinary school in Karabash, Russia. The widely renowned unhealthiest town in the world. Existing, as it does, cheek by jowl with a huge copper mine. To us this looks a truly grim place, grey and bleak, full of poorly kept Soviet era housing.  Pavel, however loves the town he grew up in, its people and his work. Apart from teaching, part of his job is to document on film the day to day events taking place in the school. His office becoming a hang out space for a particular type of arty bohemian student. Pavel is a nerd working within the school system, he doesn't ever quite fit the mold. But he has discovered a way that he can creatively contribute that works for everyone's benefit. He loves and cares about his students and their future. All is going fine, until Putin invades Ukraine.

What happens then, is that the state begins to interfere in the day to day running of the school curriculum. Teaching becomes a mere repeating of daily statements from the Kremlin, about the nature of the war, and the people's role and responsibility to support it. Daily he is forced to record on film the pseudo military assemblies, the absurd nationalistic propaganda statements being presented as education. There is one gruesome scene where a group of Wagner mercenaries come to the school to tell them about the war  and show off their military hardware and it's explosive capacity to kill and maim. At one point the Head states that the level of pupils educational attainments are falling. This is entirely a result of the additional burden of their teaching becoming a propaganda arm of the war effort. Pavel can't stand it, and hands in his resignation. 

Then, after someone from the West contacts him about the films he's made, he decides to stay. Simply in order to better document what is happening, and the decline of the school into a source of recruitment for the war effort. As his own students are drawn into being future cannon fodder for Putin's war. He makes small acts of rebellion, like broadcasting the Star Spangler Banner sung by Lady Gaga through the schools sound system. His taciturn librarian Mother, sits repairing books to make them last longer, and shakes her head at Pavel telling him 'to engage his brain, and eat more sweets' for she can sense where this is all leading. People start to be suspicious of him, and his filmmaking. His students becoming hesitant to hang out in his office or be filmed. Pavel knows it's only a matter of time before the authorities come for him, The most touching moment in this documentary is the speech he makes at the Graduation celebration he organises, the day before he leaves and escapes Putin's regime altogether. Everyone attending understanding what the sub text of it means.

This is a very humbling documentary film to watch, about one quite ordinary chap, who attempts in his own way to resist an oppressive regime. I don't think we understand, just how easily any country can fall into becoming an authoritarian state. Look how American democracy has rapidly declined in the space of just one year. Where it suddenly becomes dangerous to mock the leadership or hold certain opinions. How much people start conforming to whatever the regime demands them to be, in order to survive. i might like to think I'd fight back, but would I really?

CARROT REVIEW - 7/8

Oh, yeah, and this just won the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature 2026.
Can currently be streamed in the UK on I Player as part of its Storyville documentary series.