The Singing Revolution

The title refers to the Estonian independence movement, incubated through the country’s stifled years as a Soviet satellite, when the sole outlet for the nation’s forbidden nationalist efforts was a folk-singing festival where tens of thousands of voices joined in a patriotic anthem. About half of The Singing Revolution recounts, through three generations of partisans, the agonized history of their pushover motherland in the particularly brutal years between World War II and its 1991 declaration of independence. Singing isn’t really the focus; more important than the music (which, out of context, isn’t much) is the unity it fostered. The makers of this hugely optimistic doc, James Tusty and Maureen Castle Tusty, devote much attention to spontaneous manifestations of communal spirit. The film serves as a functional primer in Baltic history and provides choice video footage of one small country as it weathers a tectonic shift in world politics.