Director Pavel Talankin’s “Mr. Nobody Against Putin”—an account of the wartime indoctrination of students in a Russian school—was the first ever Russian (and Soviet) documentary film to be awarded an Oscar. While there have been predictable criticisms of the film by Russian officials, some opponents of the Kremlin have also expressed their dislike.

The two most common objections appear to be that Talankin failed to convey the complexities of modern Russia, and that he just exploited these complexities to make a name for himself. Both allegations could be called “colonial” in their perspective—in other words, the observer (usually a city-dweller) putting themself in the shoes of the creator (a regional schoolteacher). It’s no coincidence that, in her review for Carnegie Politika, critic Yekaterina Barabash contextualized this discussion by situating it in a decades-old debate about documentary films tackling subjects like indigenous people.

However, Talankin is not a professional director. He is literally “Mr. Nobody”—and not just in the sense of a private individual who is powerless in the face of an almighty tyrant. “Mr. Nobody” is also his creative position.

Talankin did not travel to the small town of Karabash to make his film. He was born in Karabash, grew up there, got a job there, and didn’t want to leave. He didn’t go there to capture a snapshot of Russian “life.” He lived his life while shooting the film. Which means that all of the film’s irregularities (its mix of extreme amateurishness and suspiciously staged scenes) are not a defect, but part of the story. It’s a film about how political realities turned a schoolteacher—against his will—into an underground filmmaker.

Some critics have suggested that the film doesn’t protect the children that it features. But this presupposes that teenagers need to grow up in peace and quiet under the watchful eye of wise adults. Russian children are growing up in a dictatorship that is waging an aggressive, expansionist war in Ukraine. And adults in Russian schools are not offering protection. They are mobilizing children, and turning them into agents of the state. Indeed, the task of adults employed by Russian schools is not to help teenagers find their own path, but to deprive them of choice. In other words, to send them in the direction that the state wants them to go—to the front.

It’s difficult to accuse the makers of “Mr. Nobody Against Putin” of lacking concern for these children. None of the kids in the film, or their parents, gave permission for the militaristic ceremonies that now occur in Russian schools—or for the lessons of hate, the rewriting of history, or visits from “heroic” mercenaries who fought in Ukraine.

And the main risk for the film’s teenagers isn’t being seen by the Kremlin as linked with the political opposition (with all the risks and obstacles this entails) as a result of the film’s success, but becoming pliant, unthinking cogs in the regime. God forbid one of those children forges a successful career that requires others to be persecuted, or sent to their deaths.

On occasion, critics of the film have appeared to assume that teenagers don’t want to stand out. But experience—including my own—suggests the opposite. Teenagers want to be noticed. They want to be independent. And they want to be subjective. Talankin’s film gives them this opportunity. They openly shared their thoughts on camera, and evidently counted on being heard and remembered. It’s just that the film’s audience was far, far bigger than they could ever have imagined.

For a schoolchild growing up in a provincial backwater—much like I did in Soviet-era Yaroslavl—to be part of a film that is seen all over the world, and wins an Oscar, gives meaning to your life. For many of those in “Mr. Nobody Against Putin,” it will be one of the most important events of their lives—perhaps the most important.

Furthermore, it simply isn’t true that Talankin didn’t take any risks in the making of the film. Even though it was his job to shoot video of school events, the moment he agreed to work with foreign producers, he could have been prosecuted under Russia’s treason laws. When you combine that with his monologues critical of the school, and his “invisible” protests, it’s clear he was in danger.

Finally, many have been dismissive of the film for simplifying Russia’s complex reality. Unfortunately, this is a charge that has been leveled at critics of Russia for decades. The problem is that, under more than a quarter of a century of rule by Vladimir Putin, Russia has not become more complex.

In the early 2000s, most intellectuals complained that Russia shouldn’t be reduced to Putin, the KGB, corruption, or state-owned energy giant Gazprom. Russia, they said, was more complicated, diverse, and subtle than any such easily exportable narrative. 

That was true—and still is. Yet this complexity didn’t prevent Russia from embarking on a brutally simple war. Which is why both external and internal observers are sometimes justified in ignoring that very same “complexity.”

Of course, simplification is not the best approach when it comes to policymaking—nuance matters there. But it’s odd to demand that every pronouncement about Russia account for all of the country’s many facets. Russia has simplified itself far more effectively than Talankin’s camera ever could. If anything, his work is a painful record of that process of simplification.

Indeed, viewers will learn a lot of—perhaps surprising—things about Russia from “Mr. Nobody Against Putin.” For example, that a prewar Russian school, although not ideal, was not that different from other schools across the world. Or that the pupils, teachers, buildings, and residents of an industrial town many leagues from Moscow are far less dismal than one might expect—in fact, they’re not so different from those in Russia’s big cities. Or that Karabash is not a place of darkness and malice—although it started to become one over the course of the film. Or that there was a person—Talankin—who opposed what was happening, and resisted.

Ultimately, the Oscar was not simply awarded to an excellent documentary film—it was also a recognition of an act of successful everyday resistance.