‘Mr. Nobody Against Putin’ Review: A Teacher, a Camera, and the Machinery of Propaganda

David Borenstein’s Mr. Nobody Against Putin has the makings of a very dark sitcom. The documentary focuses on Pavel “Pasha” Talankin, a fun-loving and caring primary school teacher in Karabash, a toxic mining town in Russia that became YouTube famous for being one of the most polluted cities in the world. Pasha also serves as the school’s videographer and has turned his office into a hangout for students—the safe space he wished he’d had when he attended that very school. (In fact, his mother is still the librarian there.) Pasha, who’s also credited as a co-director on the film, gets along well with his colleagues. They’re mostly female and equally dedicated to the calling of education, save for one ominous-looking male instructor who teaches—preaches—a Russian nationalist, revisionist history class that’s even scarier than his vampire visage. And then the real terror begins—first for Ukraine and then for any Russian citizen who dare stand with that country’s “neo-Nazi regime.”

To read the rest of my review visit Slant Magazine.