I am fairly well-steeped in Estonian restoration of independence lore, but this moving documentary nevertheless prompted some spine-shivers and tears in my eyes.
Well-organized and edited, structured chronologically and paced well, it is also balanced -- not only Estonian Independence Party, Heritage Conservation, Popular Front leaders but the era's top communists are interviewed.
Though perhaps guilty of a little dramatic exaggeration here and there (or maybe we just no longer realize just how close to "eradication" Estonia was) it never oversimplifies things. For example, it manages to explain the meaning of individual key songs ("Land Of My Fathers, Land That I Love") in surprising depth without losing any perspective for laymen.
I learned something new, too -- the story of Joost and Milli, the two policemen who kept the Tallinn TV tower from being taken by Soviet forces during the Moscow putsch, buying enough time for Estonian legislators to finally take the ultimate step (unanimous) of declaring independence restored.
Incidentally, does anyone know if a decent live version of "Koit" from before 1990 exists? Not that we really need one -- the studio take with the snare and horn intro is definitive. But it is such a moving song that surely Tõnis Mägi belted out at least one live gem in his prime.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
7 comments:
Hey, where did you see the film?
Bought the DVD at Videoplanet for 189 kroons.
Missed it at Sõprus, where it closed the 24th.
I am fairly well-steeped in Estonian restoration of independence lore, but this moving documentary nevertheless prompted some spine-shivers and tears in my eyes.
I experience the same effects every time I view it. Oddly enough, I've observed similar effects on 'captive audiences'of people who were not at all familiar with Estonian history.
Last summer, at a private screening of the DVD at the TÜ media centre, I was pestering my wife for kleenex from her purse (for lack of a bath towel) and chanced to observe an English nobleman who teaches at the TÜ EuroCollege wiping more than just una furtiva lagrima from cheek and otherwise stiff upper lip.
Few if any of those I've shown the DVD to this side of the Pond have remained unmoved.
Acid test: on Feb. 24, an old friend drove up to visit us. Carl is not given to much show of emotion or hyperbole. He has seen much of the world: born and raised on a tea plantation in Indonesia (when it was part of the Dutch East Indies), lived in Switzerland, Holland, Panama, USA, Canada. Served in the legendary 2ème REP of La Légion Étrangère. He was at Dienbienphu when it fell to the Viet Minh in 1954. Captured. Once we chanced to be with him when he was pressed by a couple of enthusiastic Rambo wannabes about 'what it was like' in l'Indochine 'when the end came,' Carl said, "It was really shitty." End of story.
Well, in honor of the day, Feb. 24, I ran the DVD for Carl. He watched it without comment, but blew his honker several times. Only later, over dinner at the Mandarin, did Carl pronounce: "A very brave and determined people."
Roger Trousers looks forward to seeing this. Roger knows what you mean. Roger watched the aforementioned Baltic Requiem or Homeland, and felt kind of ashamed at his Pavlovian response to sound and image. And Roger isn't even nearly as "well-steeped" as KMR.
Incidentally, from this point onwards, your blogospheric nick will be:
T-Bag.
So, anyone got a Koit bootleg?
Sadly, can't help with 'Koit' - not in my extensive bootleg archive. ;)
The Joost & Milli chapter of the Teletorn drama, though, is featured in an ETV docudrama called 'August 1991' which I picked up on DVD for about 100 kr. Well done...
Some 12 years ago I had dinner in the restaurant at the top of the tower with someone who claimed to have been present at the events of 1991. In addition to the threat of filling the tower with Freon, though, this person maintained that the elevator doors had been welded shut, thereby limiting the Sov paras' access solely to the narrow spiral staircase. This made them, according to this version, especially vulnerable to the threat of grenades rolled down the stairs by Joost & Milli...
Re Carl, not so much an acide test, I watched it with my wife, who is patriotic, but very much in the Kaitseliit/we don't need no outsiders tellin' us what to do mold. I kept on sneaking peeks over at her but I think for the most part she gave it her blessing, too.
Roger's use of Roger's third person in talking about Roger indicates to Kris one thing -- Roger must have kids.
Post a Comment