By Dennis Hartley

(Originally posted on Digby’s Hullabaloo on May 18, 2019)

While watching this extraordinarily intimate behind-the-scenes look at Vladimir Putin as he (sort of) campaigns for the Russian presidency in 2000, I began to think “OK…the guy who made this film is now either (a.) Dead (b.) Being held at an undisclosed location somewhere in Siberia or (c.) Living in exile…right?” I was relieved to learn that the correct answer is (c.) – Director Vitaly Mansky is currently alive and well and living in Latvia.

In 1999, Manksy (a TV journalist at the time) was assigned to accompany Putin on the campaign trail; hence the treasure trove of footage he had at his disposal for creating this unique time capsule of a significant moment in Russian history.

The most amazing sequence doesn’t even involve Putin…Mansky and his cameras are right there in the living room of noticeably unwell outgoing president Boris Yeltsin as he anxiously watches TV coverage with his family on election night in 2000. When former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev pops onscreen in an interview, Yeltsin (likely half in the bag) flies into a rage, yelling at the TV and demanding that it be turned off (Armando Ianucci couldn’t have written a funnier scene).