On Putin’s Blacklist: Human Rights at Risk in Putin's Russia 2018
Distributed by Passion River Films, 154 Mt. Bethel Rd., Warren, NJ 07059; 732-321-0711
Produced by The Orchard; Indiecan Entertainment
Directed by Boris Ivanov
DVD, color, 73 min.
High School - General Adult
Human Rights, Europe, Russia, Foreign Relations
Date Entered: 01/14/2019
Reviewed by Michael Fein, Coordinator of Library Services, Central Virginia Community College, Lynchburg, VAThis ham-fisted production shows the world that Putin is a thug and that he and many Russians do not find homosexuality morally acceptable. So what’s new about that? He rose up through the KGB. When this reviewer was studying Russian in the late 1970s and early 1980s, criticism of Soviet Communism was seen as a provocation and certainly not in vogue with the intelligentsia. Gorbachev was the “sophisticate” compared to that awful Ronald Reagan (going back some thirty years now) However, Gorbachev rose up through the Party organization. Now, disparaging of Russia is in vogue it seems and it is ok for the current intelligentsia to judge other countries. Using the normal/standard format of talking head experts, interviews with those affected by Putin’s ban on adoptions by citizens of countries that allow homosexuals to adopt, and various inserted clips of news broadcasts, and the like, this is very much a screed against Putin. What did strike this reviewer about this production is one remark by someone from the new European Union Aristocracy. To paraphrase – “Putin better conform to “diversity”, or else.” The Globe and Mail review of this production says it much better than I.
Video and audio are very well done with the English available in closed captioning and the options of either Dolby Digital 5.1 surround or 2.0 stereo.