THE LAST RELIC

VIIMANE RELIIKVIA

Estonia, Norway | 2023 | 104 min

Ekaterinburg is a city located east of the Urals. Here the last czar, Nicholas II, and his family, the Romanovs, met their death in 1918, executed by Bolshevik revolutionaries. Here, in present-day Russia, the nostalgia for imperial glory seems to have rekindled. The Last Relic, filmed over the four years prior to the invasion of Ukraine, outlines a powerful fresco of a provincial town on the border of Europe and Siberia, amidst historical re-enactments and military parades, and a feeble political opposition taking shape, without ever putting a dent in Putin’s power machine. Young Igor, committed to ‘left-wing’ protests, and old-school activists are a small minority that has been isolated by political repression. Estonian filmmaker Mariana Kaat made a film that explores the political and social tensions affecting contemporary Russia, where all aspirations to freedom seem to be doomed to failure. (a.d.)