(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
I Meeting Gorbachev director Werner Herzog and his British producer offer a rare glimpse into Mikhail Gorbachev's private world. Through a series of interviews with Gorbachev – who are physically impaired but who have retained their sharp wit and clear intellect – Herzog maps the life of a man he accurately describes as "one of the greatest leaders in the 20. century".
Gorbachev, who has now become 87, shows the international limelight daily that he has lost none of his characteristic humor and humanity. Herzog is quick to conclude this, with recording material that usually ends up on the floor of the locker room: the cheerful remark about the Russian soundman putting on the mosquito ("He's trying to snap something out of my pocket!"), And Gorbachev's recollection from when he was a boy, before the war, about a meeting with ethnic Germans in one Kolko (collective use) in the neighborhood – a meeting that left him with a lifelong positive impression of Germans because they made such unlikely good gingerbread. And for the well-informed: a glimpse, early in the film, of Pavel Palashchenko – the interpreter who worked with him during the 80 years and was present at historical events such as when Reagan and Gorbachev signed the Strategic Nuclear Reduction Agreement. The director wonders if Gorbachev is just polite, but concludes that he is a real, decent guy.
Werner Herzog, now 76 and known for doing quite extreme things as a filmmaker, presents a very lovable work about a man who had a profound impact on his own country's destiny.
With Herzog telling throughout the film – with his well-articulated, hoarse English with German accent – moves Meeting Gorbachev himself on the edge to be a saint biography. It is toned down from footage of Gorbachev receiving a box of sugar-free chocolate from the filmmakers (specially crafted by a chocolatier in London, Herzog says), to recordings from the family burial ground at the collective farm. The camera flies over the village where Gorbachev was born, and the landscape causes Herzog to erupt: "It's hard to imagine that from such a god-forsaken place far out in the wilderness comes one of the greatest leaders of the 20th century."
Perestroika and glasnost
Meeting Gorbachev is spiced with private pictures from Gorbachev's archive: brown-toned images from childhood, where the well-known birthmark that was subdued in publications during the Soviet era is highly visible; relationship with his beloved, late wife Raisa; his regrets about the collapse of the Soviet Union – everything is being carefully considered.
Gorbachev was a gifted young man, with a mother who was illiterate (and remained there all his life). Childhood was characterized by famine (two family members died of hunger), poverty and war. An inherent ability to understand the world nevertheless secured him good grades at school. He began studying law at the Moscow State University, where Herzog notes that "he transformed himself into a man of broad knowledge."
The film speeds up when Herzog shows Mikhail Gorbachev's way from regional party chief to Soviet foreign minister. He interviews world leaders from the time when Minister Gorbachev welcomed and saved them, such as Miklos Nemeth: Nemeth became the last prime minister of socialist Hungary and played a little-known – but crucial – role in the fall of the Iron Curtain when dismantling the barbed wire on the border with the West . It was a measure that allowed tens of thousands of East German refugees to cross the border into freedom in the summer of 1989.
The system did not serve the people
Finally, after the death of three very old Soviet leaders (Leonid Breshnev, Yurij Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko – also called "the last fossils"), Gorbachev became secretary general of the party in 1985 and promoted perestroika (restructuring) and so on glasnost (Transparency); the policy he became famous for both at home and abroad. Gorbachev is obviously in his right element when he talks about this time. He has a broad smile on his face when he says, "More democracy, that was our first and most important goal."
Seeking profit and growth for your own gain was madness. The system no longer served the people, something had to be done, Gorbachev points out, with comments that can easily be applied to the world's evils today. He insists that there was no tire operation around the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, and states that as soon as the Soviet leadership knew what had happened, they informed the world.
We get testimony from those who sat on the first row of history when Gorbachev's reforms were linked to his foreign policy proposals, including George Schultz, Ronald Reagan's foreign minister; Lech Walesa, the leader of Poland's Solidarity Movement and James Baker, Secretary of State under George Bush.
Loved and despised
For those of us who lived through this confusing time – as participants behind the Iron Curtain, or observers in front of it – the film evokes strong emotions. It makes us remember a time when a Russian leader was a hero rather than a villain. People demonstrated for thousands of peace and freedom. Russia was a source of hope and admiration, not fear and disgust. Although Gorbachev is still an unloved figure in Russia – many blame him for the poverty and decay that followed the fall of the Soviet Union – it is a convenient oblivion in today's Russia of how respected he was before the time of chaos came.
And perhaps, in a time of icy relations between Russia and many Western countries, we could possibly ponder Gorbachev's explicit defense of his legacy: “No matter what anyone says, the proposal to end the Cold War from the Soviet Union came first. "I still believe we need to move forward and get rid of the world with nuclear weapons – just as Reagan and I suggested."
Gorbachev even allows a discreet sting to Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin when he states that "those who do not support cooperation and disarmament have no place in politics". From a man who may well go into history as one of the greatest statesmen of the 20th century, these are words worth remembering. And for younger generations, who did not experience the 1980s and early 1990s, the important events of that time provide inspiration and hope that not everything is lost, in these bleak times.
Herzog ends the film by asking Gorbachev what his tomb should be. The architect of perestroika recalls a friend's ("We Tried") before singing some strokes by Russian lyricist Mikhail Lermontov, who ends up with a picture of a soul lying beneath a shady oak that is "evergreen."
