Farewell Comrades! TV, Webdoc, Book/ 2
The first tv-documentary episode of the arte (German-French) crossmedia event, presented on this site a couple of weeks ago, is online for a free preview, also for viewers outside France and Germany. The 52 mins. documentary, to be broadcast on arte this coming tuesday, directed by Andrei Nekrasov, covers the period 1975-1979 in the series that in its 6 parts goes up to 1991.
It is too early to make a review of the tv series – I will wait until the whole series is out on dvd – announced to be on February 8 – also to be able to watch a version without dubbed voices as here in French or in German. Nevertheless, having watched the German version expectations are met by the work of Nekrasov, who instead of a tv-normal-boring third person commentary has chosen what is called a father-daughter dialogue. The young woman in the film is the daughter of Nekrasov, Tatjana, in the film carrying the name Gagarina! In the introduction at the site of arte it is said:
“Ein Dialog zwischen Vater und Tochter bildet den roten Faden der Serie: Der Vater, geboren in den 50er Jahren, wurde nach sowjetischen Ideal erzogen, während die Tochter, eine moderne junge Europäerin auf der Suche nach ihren Wurzeln, in den 80er Jahren im Westen aufwuchs…”
In other words, the father has lived it, the daughter wants to understand what went wrong with socialism and is the one who gives the viewer the background verbally accompanied by archive material from documentary and fiction films as well as interviews with people like the interpreter of Ceaucescu, the close advisor to Brezhnev, the man who blew the statue of Czekoslovak communist leader Klement Gottwald into pieces.
http://www.arte.tv/fr/Adieu-Camarades-_21-1975-1991/4314104.html