[Editor’s Note: LFM is currently covering a series of provocative films debuting this week and next at The Los Angeles Film Festival.]
By Joe Bendel. Over 200 former employees and directors of Yukos, the Russian oil company, have been in some way persecuted by the Putin regime. If that sounds like a coincidence, Prime Minister Putin would like to thank you for your gullibility. Unquestionably, the biggest fish amongst his quarry was Yukos’ former CEO, the visionary Russian entrepreneur Mikhail Khodorkovsky. At one time the sixteenth richest man in the world, Khodorkovsky now resides in a tiny prison cell. How he got there is a chilling story of the not-so-new Russia, compellingly recounted in Cathryn Collins’ Vlast (Power), which screens during the 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival (trailer above).
Collins never confuses Khodorkovsky with a choirboy. She makes it very clear Khodorkovsky’s early years are still shrouded in mystery and unsettling rumors. However, she gives him credit for taking on the decrepit Yukos state enterprise at a time when the price of oil was at an all time low, eventually turning around the company – and yes, making billions in the process.
Khodorkovsky was one of the original so-called ‘oligarchs’ who largely reaped the benefits of Yeltsin’s privatization plan. Yet he was a crony capitalist of a different color, becoming a prominent philanthropist and advocate of democracy in Russia. He also started championing corporate transparency, only to suddenly find himself behind bars shortly thereafter.
First-time documentarian Collins is admirably even-handed in her profile of Khodorkovsky, never overstating her case or simply appealing to emotion. While giving the incarcerated mogul credit for his business acumen, she is most impressed by his ability to identify and recruit smart, talented young people for his team. Of course, the implications of his story are clear. If a man with an estimated net worth over fifteen billion dollars is not safe in Putin’s Russia, nobody is.
Many of Vlast’s on-camera interview subjects participated at not inconsiderable risk to their well being. In doing so, they definitely convey an unvarnished sense of life in Russia today. Providing clear and concise historical background, Vlast provides the proper context for non-Russophiles and non-Russophobes to appreciate Khodorkovsky’s story. Still, given the long history of Russian and Soviet anti-Semitism, the question of whether Khodorkovsky’s Jewish heritage has contributed to his persecution is strangely never really explored.
Vlast joins the growing ranks of valuable documentaries doggedly raising alarms about the lawlessness of the Putin regime. Unfortunately, previous related films like Eric Bergkraut’s Letter to Anna and Andrei Nekrasov’s Poisoned by Polonium have largely fallen on deaf ears in the West. Given its reasoned tone and access to Khodorkovsky’s inner circle, Vlast should impress viewers concerned about the current state of the world. Well worth seeking out, it screens next Tuesday (6/22) and Wednesday (6/23) at the LAFF.
Posted on June 18th, 2010 at 9:47am.
I’m glad that this review mentions the anti-Semitism of the Soviets and the Russian empire before them. This is little discussed in the West, but is a source of ongoing pain for Jews in Russia. The poet Yevtushenko, now in exile in America, covered this in the 1950s (I believe) in his controversial poem Babi Yar about how the Soviets covered up the fact that the Nazis murder of thousands of Jews at Babi Yar in Kiev was motivated by anti-Semitism. The Soviets could not admit this for decades and expunged it from official histories. It is sad that it is happening again today with people like this businessman. (By the way, what was his crime in the first place?)
What is happening to Russia? It is very sad … they need to find a way to make democracy work.
The trailer for this is intriguing, especially how it uses the shots of Khodorkovsky in his prison cell. It’s really creepy that they keep him in this tiny little prison cell as if he’s some incredibly dangerous criminal, when actually he’s just a businessman. I mean, alleged tax evaders aren’t kept in little tiny cages as if they’re Hannibal Lector in “The Silence of the Lambs.” That’s what i found creepiest about this. I don’t know the details of Khodorkovsky or his background or what really goes on in Russian business, but the fact that the authorities would treat him like this and put him in a tiny cage (and the fact that he’s been funding pro-democracy forces and was critical of Putin) makes me really suspicious of the Russian government, not this businessman.