I saw David Lean’s Dr Zhivago (available on BBC iPlayer for the next three weeks) when it came out in 1965 and was bowled over by it. It triggered a passionate interest in Russia and its early 20th century history and I have never been able to get the Lara theme from Maurice Jarre’s score out of my head. I even named my new dog Tonya after the doctor’s devoted wife. So when I watched it again last night for the first time in almost half a century I was intrigued to see how much was familiar. The love affair between Zhivago (Omar Sharif) and Lara (Julie Christie) was much as I had remembered it but I don’t think I grasped the moral complexities of the story first time round — all credit to Boris Pasternak, on whose novel Robert Bolt based his screenplay. Though the film scooped several Oscars (including best cinematography, quite rightly) it lost out to The Sound of Music for others and some critics thought it trivialised the gruesome reality of the Russian revolutions and the subsequent Civil War. Personally, I don’t think that is really fair, though of course David Lean wanted to make an epic love story, not a war film.
The atmosphere of Siberia is brilliantly evoked (even if the film was actually shot mainly in Spain and Finland) and as the film runs for well over three hours there is time for the characters to develop. Dr Zhivago made a star of Omar Sharif — it is fascinating to see how low down his name appears in the opening credits — but the cast list is stuffed with first-rank predominantly British stars, including Tom Courtenay as a young revolutionary, Alec Guinness as Zhivago’s half brother and Geraldine Chaplin as Tonya. If it were made today I imagine some parts, such as the long winter train journey in cattle wagons, would have been made more realistically sordid and Julie Christie would not have had immaculate hair and make-up throughout. But these are small quibbles as the film still has an extraordinary pull.
I am far from alone in turning to Netflix during the long evenings of COVID-19 lockdown, which means I have been watching TV series that otherwise I would have missed. The most remarkable, which I finished last night, has been the 12-episode The Road to Calvary, originally on Russia’s NTV. Based on a trilogy of novels written by Alexei Tolstoy — who won the Stalin prize for them, the highest literary accolade the USSR could award — the story focuses on two beautiful and emotionally charged sisters, torn from their comfortable upper middle class life in Tsarist St. Petersburg and separated by the tumultuous events of the First World War, the October Revolution and then the Civil War that pitted Reds against Whites. Both are aggressively wooed — and periodically almost raped — against a backdrop of military carnage and class conflict, the locale shifting to Samara (from which the novelist himself hailed), isolated hamlets on the steppe and finally the Bolsheviks’ new capital of Moscow.
The two sisters, bound together by unusually strong sibling ties, struggle with their feelings for two suitors, later their husbands, who are ripped away by the wars and find themselves conflicted by the competing ideologies. The 2017 television series (in Russian, with English sub-titles) emphasizes the political contradictions and ambiguity of the period in a way that would never have been possible while the Communists were in power and it is the shocking cruelty, the uncertainty and illogicality of war that pervade the narrative, rather than heroism. But it is the strong performances of the four principal actors which really makes one want to know if they will survive, and get together again. No expense was spared in this lavish production making it visually spectacular, too. One gets an unforgettable view of what Russia was like a century ago, so even if the story is fictional at times it has the power of documentary, veering from great beauty to savagery.
In the 1980s and 1990s there was reason to celebrate, as military dictatorships in Latin America came to an end and Communism collapsed in Europe. But in the 21st. Century democratisation has gone into reverse. According to the latest annual report from the Washington-based NGO Freedom House, democracy is under assault in many parts of the world, including the United States itself. “Dictators are toiling to stamp out the last vestiges of domestic dissent and spread their harmful influence to new corners of the world,” the report laments. China comes in for intense criticism for its “totalitarian offensive” against Uyghurs in Xinjiang, as well as its “relentless campaign to replace existing international norms with its own authoritarian vision.” Russia is lambasted for last year’s “stage-managed” elections, from which genuine opposition was largely excluded, while Iran used live ammunition against demonstrators last autumn, reportedly killing hundreds.
Hot on the heels of the Conservative election win last week, guaranteeing that Brexit will happen on 31 January, Prime Minister Boris Johnson has made clear that after leaving the EU, the UK will cease to be subject to EU rules and regulations. The government must know full well that this determination, if followed through, will mean that there can be no frictionless trade agreement with the EU27, either at the end of the projected transition period — arbitrarily set and enshrined in law by Mr Johnson’s Hard Brexiteers as 31 December 2020 — or ever. There is no way that the EU is going to compromise on its standards (from which British consumers have benefitted for nearly half a century) just to please London. So inevitably the UK economy will pivot towards the United States, the land of chlorine-washed chicken and hormone-injected beef. US pharmaceutical companies are already salivating at the thought of the killing they may make by foisting higher-priced drugs on the NHS. Of course, trade with the US will not in the foreseeable future make up for the inevitable shortfall in trade with the Continent and the Republic of Ireland. But Brexiteers argue that the UK will now be “free” to look elsewhere for trading partners (ignoring the fact that it always was). These presumably would include the Big Four BRICs — Brazil, Russia, India and China. However, one should note that those four emerging powers do not share our values, let alone our standards, unlike the EU. I am not saying that Messrs. Bolsonaro, Putin, Modi and Xi are the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but I would not fancy being stuck alone on a desert island with any one of them.
There isn’t much love between the UK and Russia these days, in the wake of the attempted murder of Sergei Skripal and his daughter, but while the war of words continues between the two governments, at a cultural level there is a determination to keep things friendly. So there was a good turn-out — and no embarrassing demonstrations — at the gala UK premiere of Artyom Mikhalkov’s 2016 film, Betting on Love, at the Soho Hotel’s screening room in Soho last night. The event was all part of the London end of the Sochi Film Festival Awards (SIFFA) — a relative newcomer to the film festival circuit, based in the Black Sea resort that hosted the Winter Olympics four years ago. There were drinks and awards of various kinds before the Soho screening, with a great many bouquets of flowers. Stephen Frears — who collected a certificate, along with one for an absent Dame Judi Dench — was so festooned with blooms he could have opened a stall in Columbia Road market. Artyom Mikhalkov was on hand to receive his own Sochi gong. His film was a romantic comedy that made many nods to the rom-coms of the 1960s and 1970s, with a bit of James Bond thrown in. The hero was a diminutive Armenian waiter working in a sushi restaurant who nonetheless has the chance of winning the hand of a fair maiden. There are some nice gags about Russian mafiosi as well as armospheric location shots in Las Vegas, but the film was as frothy as whipped cream in a can — and everyone kissed, made up and paired off at the end.
There is a glaring paradox at the heart of Britain’s Conservative government at the moment. On the one hand, the government is criticising Russia and accusing it of various kinds of interference in British life (including attempted murder) while on the other hand it is pursuing a course that will facilitate one of the Kremlin’s main aims, namely Brexit. It now seems highly likely that Russia campaigned anonymously through social media in favour of a Leave vote in 2016, and weakening the EU (which Britain’s departure will undoubtedly do) is a key Russian foreign policy goal. The Paradox I mentioned earlier is personified by the Foreign Secretary, Boris Johnson, who has castigated the Russians for “trying to conceal the needle of truth in a haystack of lies and obfuscation” (rather a good description of himself, incidentally) while being a prominent cheerleader for Brexit. However, the wheels are beginning to come off the Brexit bus as it becomes ever clearer that the British public were grossly misled about what Brexit would mean in practice. We were not told that it would make us poorer, that many of our rights as European citizens would be taken away, that we would be leaving the customs union as well as the single market, or that some sort of border controls might have to be introduced between Northern Ireland and the Republic.
London and Brussels have come up with a transition deal, to see us through the period from March next year, when Britain is due to formally leave the EU, and the end of 2020. But it is clear from the details of the deal so far released that basically we will still have all the obligations of being an EU member while losing some of the benefits and having no say in EU deliberations. And it can only get worse after that. Because of Mrs May’s precipitous invoking of Article 50 there are now only 12 months before EU departure day, but if Brexit is going to be halted measures have to be taken long before that. October this year really would be the deadline for effective action, as Brussels wants to have a post-Brexit deal with Britain finalised by then, so it can be ratified by the other 27 member states. That means that we need a summer of discontent, of people taking to the streets to protest that we were sold a pup in the EU Referendum and that we want the chance to vote on the terms of the deal that has been negotiated — with an option to stay in the EU. Yes, Brexit can be stopped!
The year 2017 is the 60th anniversary of the launching of the European project, but never since its foundation has the European Union (formerly the EEC) been under such pressure from its immediate neighbourhood. Russia has been interfering in the Baltic states in particular — and maybe in Britain’s EU Referendum, too — but most serious has been the flood of refugees and migrants fleeing conflict in Syria or poverty in Africa. Italy alone took in more than half a million Mediterranean boat people between 2014 and 2017. More than 17,000 such boat people have perished at sea since 2011. Both Italy and Greece were put under huge strain by the sheer scale of the humanitarian demand and shamefully not all of the other 26 EU member states rallied round to help, notably several in central and eastern Europe. Meanwhile, much of the responsibility for dealing with the influx and with security matters (such as the threat of terrorism) has fallen on the shouders of the EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini. She is the prime focus of Annalisa Piras’s new hour-long documentary, Europe at Sea, now available on Amazon VOD. Though she had served briefly as Italy’s Foreign Minister, Ms Mogherini was considered a light-weight when she was first appointed, and therefore not a danger to the vested interests of some of the EU’s more powerful member states, but she has more than proved her mettle, both in dealing with the migration crisis and in building on the complementarity between the EU and NATO. She comes over in the film as compassionate (“You can be both strong and human”) but also hard-headed. She put together a Global Strategy for the EU”s response to the mulltifareous external challenges facing the Union, launched the day after Britain’s Brexit vote.
Since the election of French President Emmanuel Macron, there is new impetus in the Franco-German relationship that will help steer the EU through its choppy waters at a time when Donald Trump is largely withdrawing the United States from the European scene. The great tragedy is that Britain should be in pole position too, but instead is tied up in its own Brexit navel-gazing prior to exiting the EU in 2019. The core message of this film is that the EU member states need to pull together if they are not to sink under the weight of the external challenges; the implication naturally is that Britain is once again missing the boat. Unlike Pisar’s earlier film, The Great European Disaster Movie, Europe at Sea does not use any gimmicks of fantasy; rather, it is a straight-down-the-line, powerful, factual documentary, with an eclectic range of top-rank interviewees and some occasionally harrowing footage. It is a tribute to Federica Mogherini’s work and determination, as well as to the potential for good that rests in European collective action. Brexiteers will hate it, but they should watch it, as they will learn something, as will everyone else. The film is a fine exposition of a noble cause.
Soft power has become an important concept in international relations since the end of the Second World War — namely, the way states use cultural diplomacy and other forms of non-military action to spread their influence. But recently a new phenomenon has been identified: “dark power” — the way some countries, especially Russia, use broadcasting and social media, in particular, to influence or interfere in the affairs of other states. This is something that particularly concerns the three Baltic States and other former parts of the Soviet Union, such as Ukraine and Georgia. The latter two have of course also experienced military interventions by Russia, but all have seen their communications and democracy come under various forms of dark power assault, from cyber-War against Estonia to Russian bots engaging in election and referendum campaigns, including the 2016 EU Referendum in Britain and the US presidential election. No wonder both NATO and the EU are concerned and have been looking at ways of countering this hostile intervention, including running facilities in the Baltic States.
But it is not only Russians who are involved. President Trump has shown himself to be a master of the dark arts of disinformation and the dissemination of fake news. One of the strongest presentations at the AEJ Congress was from Mikko Salo of Faktabaari, Finland, who outlined the escalation of Post-Truth in the region and how this can be countered by rigorous fact-checking and counter-assertions. This is an issue of which all media professionals need to be aware, as well as students and others who are operating in a world in which language is being twisted, alternative “facts” published and negative ideologies propagated by forces hostile to the nature of open and tolerant European democratic societies.
Last night the US President confirmed Europe’s worst fears, by announcing that he is withdrawing from the Paris Agreement on climate change. He is on record as saying that he doesn’t really believe in global warming, and although his pledge to give coal-mining a boost went down well in certain areas of the country during his election campaign the potential impact on the global climate is serious. It is encouraging that not only the European Union but also Russia and China have reaffirmed their support for the Paris Agreement, though sadly Britain’s Prime Minister, Theresa May — keen to enhance her status as Mr Trump’s best foreign friend as Brexit looms — reportedly commented that the US President is free to do as he likes. Whereas that is factually correct, it is politically inept. Britain should not be seen to be aligning itself with a climate change denier at this crucial moment in history. Many world leaders, including former President Barack Obama, have cited climate change as possibly the biggest threat facing humankind, which is why it is so important that countries around the world limit their emissions and take other measures to slow and ideally reverse the trend of global warming. It was a great victory for common sense when China came on board. Now Donald Trump has taken the United States in the opposite direction. I suspect he rather enjoys being out on a limb, such is his monstrous ego. But those who go out on a limb run the risk of someone cutting off the branch on which they are sitting, and for the planet’s sake, I hope that is what will happen before too long.
In a campaign speech in Bavaria, the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, today declared bluntly that Europe can no longer rely on the United States as a core ally, now that Donald Trump is in charge — and that Theresa May’s Brexit strategy has put the United Kingdom beyond the pale, too. Although Frau Merkel emphasized the need for friendly relations with the USA, Britain and Russia, she declared, “We Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands.” The Chancellor is recently back from the G7 Summit in Taormina, Sicily, and what happened there clearly made her realise that America under Trump and the UK under May cannot be fully trusted as allies. “The times in which we can fully count on others are somewhat over, as I have experienced in the past few days,” she said.
The Trump administration, of course, leaked sensitive security information following the Manchester bombing, which must make even Mrs May regret that she cuddled up so closely to the Donald following his election victory. Even more uncomfortable is the reality that in the minds of the leader of Germany and of several of her continental counterparts, Trump, May and Putin (albeit not in equal measure) are now a triumvirate of the unreliable. How shaming for Britain, and it’s all the fault of the UK Conservatives embracing the hard Brexit narrative with all the fervour of new converts to the religion of UKIP. For an ardent European and Liberal Democrat such as myself this is painful in the extreme. Mrs May declared some weeks ago that the nation is behind her, 100%, but that is not true, Mrs May. It’s not just many among the 48% who voted Remain in last June’s EU Referendum who can see that you are in danger of leading Britain over the white cliffs of Dover without a parachute. Many who for various reasons voted Leave now also see the folly of your strategy. Actually, strategy is the wrong word, as it is all too clear that when it comes to Brexit you have no strategy, and your three idiotic Brexit Ministers have no plan. There are just 10 days for this message to get across to the general public before the general election voting. But the conclusion is clear: if you care about Britain’s future and its place in the world, Don’t Vote Tory!
Jonathan Fryer 