(DAVID SATTER) Age of Delirium,” a documentary by David Satter, tells the story of the fall of the Soviet Union as lived and experienced by the Soviet people. Satter’s film tells the story of Alexander Shatravka, who crossed the Finnish border only to be handed back by the Finns and tortured in a mental hospital; the residents of the city of Shadrinsk, who believed in the Soviet ideology only to learn the reality of the Soviet system fighting in Afghanistan; and Ludvikas Simutis, who spent his entire life fighting for the independence of Lithuania after the murder of his father and many others.
By recreating through personal stories the eerie reality of the Soviet Union’s fictitious world, Satter shows what it meant to live in a society based on a false idea and the tragic consequences of the Soviet attempt to remake human nature. The film describes the Brezhnev era and the influence of Gorbachev and perestroika. It concludes with the events of 1991, the massacre at the Vilnius television tower, the mass protests in Moscow, and the August 1991 coup, all of which led to the December 25, 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.
Winner of the Van Gogh Grand Jury Award Amsterdam Film Festival 2013. Complete and uncut version.
