An Insider Looks Out: 'Mr. Nobody' Finds an Audience
The Oscar-nominated documentary "Mr. Nobody Against Putin" works as a film because it works as a vehicle for its protagonist to roll his eyes.
In Netflix’s 2018 documentary series “Wild, Wild Country,” viewers get a history lesson that is unlikely to be found in any traditional school textbook. The series centers on a controversial Indian guru who, along with his flamboyantly abrasive enforcer, builds a compound in rural Oregon and soon tries to take over the local government. At the time this was happening in the 1980s, the culture clash between the religious group and its flabbergasted neighbors became national news (thanks in part to a poisoning conspiracy). Today, though, the controversy is largely lost to history.
And that’s why the series is so fun to watch. It gives viewers an otherwise impossible look into a wildly absurd—and wildly specific—place and time in history.
Many great documentaries perform a similar feat. Think Werner Herzog’s “Grizzly Man” or Errol Morris’ “Gates of Heaven.” Even documentaries like Laura Poitras’ “Citizen Four” are premised on the idea of taking the viewer—an outsider—into a place they could not otherwise go.
The new Oscar-nominated documentary “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” takes a decidedly different approach. Yes, it transports the viewer into a place they could not otherwise visit—a Russian school at a time when government propaganda is beginning to intrude on the school’s curriculum. Yet, what makes the film so poignant is that it functions not so much as an inside look designed for outsiders, but rather as a meditation on its own co-director’s outward gaze.
Pavel Talankin was an event coordinator and videographer for a school in the Ural Mountain village of Karabash. As Russia’s invasion of Ukraine unfolds in 2022, the school is increasingly asked to promote the war through scripted lessons and patriotic ceremonies. Not only that, but Talankin is required to film the lessons and upload them to a server so that the government can (theoretically) verify that the school is performing its patriotic duties.
Talankin is scandalized by the requests. He finds them both absurd and horrendous. It is not lost on him that the reason schools are being targeted for this type of messaging is because the young people who graduate will soon be asked to don Russian uniforms and fight.
Talankin begins searching for ways to undermine the government’s efforts. He reaches out to a Russian TV producer looking for stories about how the Ukraine war is affecting the work lives of Russian citizens. The producer reads Talankin’s pitch, but instantly realizes it would never be allowd to air on Russian TV. However, he is intrigued enough to forward it to the American documentarian David Borenstein, who contacts Talankin and suggests they collaborate on a documentary based on Talankin’s footage.
The result is a unique directorial collaboration. Talankin regularly communicated with Borenstein, sending footage and discussing strategy. Given the circumstances, their strategy talks centered both on the structure of the film, and on the safety of its protagonist. In the film’s final moments, we see Talankin saying goodbye, both explicitly and implicitly. He has a final conversation with his mother, who also works at the school and does not realize he is leaving. He coordinates the school’s graduation ceremony, where students give heartfelt goodbyes to their classmates teachers, including Talankin. He takes down posters from his office walls and recounts all of the things he loves about his town. He loves “almost everything” about the town, he says. And then, he flees his homeland to safety.
“Mr. Nobody” is a moving portrait of a heroic dissenter, and an inside look at a country undergoing dramatic social and political change. Yet, the film works because it inverts the traditional outside-in dynamic. Yes, it takes the viewer inside a place the viewer could not otherwise go. But the poignancy of the film is that its insider—Talankin—is doing his work as a message to the outsider. It’s not about an outsider looking in; it’s about an insider looking out.
By connecting with Borenstein (and through Borenstein, the outside world), Talankin gains an audience who is in on the joke. When the school begins receiving lessons that not only script what the teacher teaches, but also the questions students ask, Talankin can look at the camera and know his audience thinks it’s as crazy as he does. When Talankin goes on the roof of the school and kicks over a stand holding the Russian flag, it’s not just a weird act of micro-protest; it’s a performance for a global audience.
It’s impossible to know whether Talankin would have carried out such antics had he not known the footage would eventually be seen by an international audience. However, without an audience of outsiders, the footage would certainly have lost its meaning. It would be lost to time or confiscated as evidence by Russian authorities. Maybe it would simply sit neglected on a Russian server for decades. Or perhaps it would have even found its way into Russian propaganda. In any of those cases, though, the footage would no longer be a protest; it would no longer serve as a wink to a knowing audience.
Moreover, whereas “Wild, Wild Country” is about people who chose to believe in a particular strain of religious ideas, “Mr. Nobody” is about a person who does not drink the proverbial Kool-Aid. He knows what is happening is absurd, and he knows his international audience realizes it’s absurd. Deep down, he hopes his friends and neighbors know this, too, but he also knows that the majority of the people in his hometown favor the war. They even hold a rally in support of it.
“Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” then, is ultimately a story about human connection. Yes, it’s a time capsule of a particular place and a particular time and a particular people and a particular political project. But mostly it’s about the idea that human connection can overcome isolation, even if that connection is only possible through the lens of a camera.