Vlast (Power)

Biting documentary viewed at the 2010 Los Angeles Film Festival. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a volatile but highly advantageous environment for young Russian businessmen eager to build the fledgling market economy by any means necessary. Striking extraordinary deals with the government to acquire newly privatized industries, a small group of men became phenomenally rich almost overnight. The most successful of these oligarchs was Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who quickly became the wealthiest man in Russia.

"VLAST" (director/producer Cathryn Collins) means "power" in Russian and this review of the persecution, high profile trial, and eventual imprisonment of a Jewish oligarch- entrepreneur, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, makes the case that the new Russia, under the powerful grip of Vladimir Putin, former ace agent of the dreaded KGB, is now worse off than it was under Communism. Following the regime change in the early nineties Khodorowsky, along with many others, became an overnight billionaire when he took over the petroleum giant Promos. When he got a little too big for his boots and started making noises about true political reform, even suggesting that he might run for office — he and his followers were either hounded into exile or put into prison. Interviews with his defense lawyer, now living in the US, are particularly telling about the new Russian abuse of power at the highest levels, and the entire tenor of the film is set at the very beginning by an elderly Russian lady in a protesting crowd who exclaims "Vote for Putin? –Are you kidding! –We knew what would happen if the KGB ever got back in power…" Director Cathryn Collins had no filmmaking experience before this, but did have a long term interest in the Soviet Union, and the result is a remarkably professional, informative, and rather terrifying piece of documentary filmmaking.