Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone

Loved it, as I do with all of Curtis's films.

That being said I was first put off by the lack of narration. Upon further reflection I mostly find Curtis's narration and attempts at sensemaking confounding anyway. This footage mostly doesn't need it.

The dissolution of the Sovjet Union is right at the cusp of that which I recognize from everyday life and that which is completely foreign to my personal experience. This series reflects this back to me perfectly. It is both fascinating and unnerving to watch, like actually being there, not fully understanding where you are or what to do. I suspect the people portrayed must have felt similarly.

If the point is to give an emotional history of the events this series is most certainly the best effort I can imagine. The footage is well chosen and the lack of music makes for a pretty raw emotional imprint.

I could lie and say I've watched every Curtis, I haven't, in honesty I've watched around 5 of his creations. Often found his work a mixture of mesmerisingly brilliant and somewhat simplistic.

What he's done here is truly impressive, and I say this as someone with a particular interest in the subject matter. For weeks friends have been telling me "I must watch the new Curtis" and "it's all the stuff you find interesting, how haven't you seen it".

I folded and turned it on, and have been thinking about it ever since.

He's somehow managed to organise (with his team) a patchwork of archival footage into one of the most hauntingly brilliant works of film. Many moments I thought, he's going to miss this thing, this moment or important reference and yet he never does.

A harrowing and important work, makes the viewer feel the absolute madness of the place and time, the visceral horror and unbelievable unfairness of it all.

An amazing series, filled with extraordinary first-hand archive footage presented without audio narration that provides viewers with unique and often highly-intimate perspectives on life in the USSR and Russia during this period. Overlaid only with basic English text, it provides an unfiltered and graphic visualisation of the often-appalling world that Soviet citizens endured - and then how dark malignant forces took root. Watching this series helps one to better understand why Russia and her neighbours are the way they are today, to appreciate the immense pain and endless hardships endured by generations of people across a vast stretch of land. It feels epic and is epically insightful in the process. Brilliantly presented, compelling TV. Living history at its best.

It's a masterpiece and a mammoth production undertaking, very cleverly edited where each episode allows the viewer to follow a few particular people featured throughout for instance, intersped by various other events throughout the (former) Soviet Union. Although in some sense, it's just a countless number of bits of BBC video spliced together, it is much more than that and very cleverly done. There's no spoken narration but some great sound and music: pop, choral & even some dancing authentically attached to the videos, and only a few very good succinct subtitles to give some sense of the wider history. There is so much material, in such detail, from so many perspectives that in the way it's done it represents something of a vast video social history of Russia in the end of the 20th century. There are a few of the political players, but mostly just suffering ordinary people, not to mention the odd bear, monkey, a forlorn hungry zoo tigress... One can gather quite a lot about the historical political situation from the point of view of the traumatised masses and from so many different locations and ethnicities across this great nation imploding under the weight of kleptocracy. A 9000km long tragic crime scene.

Adam Curtis made an excellent choice not to narrate Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone. Although at times I've almost heard his voice and it would have fitted perfectly, the images were so strong and speaking for themselves that narration would've just spoiled them.

In fact it would be very difficult to summarize in one review what this documentary tried to convey. We saw a lot of extremes one associates with Russia, probably intensified because we're observing a country partially rooted in European culture.

It was inevitable that Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone offers some insights in the former Soviet republics, as well, even some satellites of the Warsaw pact. I'm pointing this out since it still puzzles me why a lot of people use the terms Russian and Soviet interchangeably.

Russia 1985-1999: TraumaZone was very good, both in terms of content and delivery. Even the inevitable bias, given the footage stemming from BBC archives, was so slight that it didn't ruin the objectivity of the documentary.