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Tovarisch: I Am Not Dead

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by Leung Wing-Fai
The legend is that the subject of this documentary, Garri Urban, a Ukrainian-Jewish physician, escaped from both the Holocaust and Gulag during the Second World War. As the Eastern Bloc was breaking down in late 1989, he wrote a book, Tovarisch: I am not Dead about his experience which was so unbelievable that he and his son, Stuart (the director), went to Russia and Ukraine to find proof in 1992. Once there, Garri set out to retrieve his KGB files, despite dangers of being imprisoned all over again (he was believed to be still on the wanted list). There was certainly a hint of an enigma: perhaps Garri was indeed a special agent for the KGB, hence his escape from the Gulag, but we never get to the truths behind the mysteries surrounding him.

The documentary in many ways follows standard contemporary biographical narrative, constructing the story through footage, archive films and talking head interviews. The characters are certainly there. Dr. Garri Urban was no doubt an interesting subject, charming, highly intelligent and articulate. His long-lost lover in Russia, whom he had not seen for over 50 years, conveys a sense of gravity and resignation to fate that is rarely found except perhaps during the most extreme circumstances. Garri’s reunion with his brother, who was driven to become a militia and now lives in Israel, was nothing but emotional. Given these colourful personalities, the documentary certainly has enough to keep the audience going for 80 minutes.
The weakness, the missing link if you like, lies in the style of the narrator, Stuart himself. There have been many recent successful documentaries that explore identity and family heritage. Mostly, the filmmakers, the offspring, have to locate themselves firmly in the creative process. Tarnation (Jonathan Caouette 2003) and Tell Them Who You Are (Mark Wexler 2004) are such examples, where the directors often have to put themselves through quite traumatic encounters with their parents and reveal that vulnerability of family relationships. Here, Stuart’s relatively objective stance prevents an exploration of that emotional inheritance. Garri Urban seemed a larger-than-life character who might have had a complex relationship with his son. Indeed, he was shown explaining his motive in getting involved in the filming at one point but the documentary failed to follow it up with the thoughts of the director. There is also little sense of what happened in the 14 years between 1992 and 2006, by which time Garri was already dead. Seeing the older Stuart, for example, calls for narrative continuity, which is missing in the film.

The documentary contextualises Garri’s life story with regards to the Holocaust and Gulag but fails to dig deeper into several major issues that it raises. At one point, Garri questions the involvement of former neighbours in the persecution of Jews in the Ukraine. The documentary also tries to query the political complexity of the former Soviet Union for a prisoner like Garri. However, the historical and emotional exploration stops a little short of something truly meaningful. Despite that, Tovarisch: I Am Not Dead is a fascinating human story about an enigmatic man that deserves its place amongst similar documentaries about the Second World War.

Dir. Stuart Urban, UK 2007, 80 mins

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