Awakening (1990)

• 70%
• 1990
• Drama
• History
• Jüri Sillart
• Tõnu Kark
• Sulev Luik
• Kaljo Kiisk

A first film made of the 1949 March deportation of Estonian people to Siberia by Soviet Secret Police NKVD. During couple of days and nights nearly 21 thousand people, mostly women and children, were under top secret taken from their homes to railway stations and locked into animal wagons to take a trip of thousands of kilometers to a far, poor, unfriendly and cold land where they were mostly used as cheap (free) labor. The movie presents the events symbolist, as in the leading roles are recognizable the characters from bible Jesus, Satan and Judas. That makes the film top artistic but unrealistic, very slow and difficult to follow. Though in general not bad produced, the acting is time to time too theatrical and unfortunately we have rather another medium-level artistic film here than a worth-to-watch history film.