Meeting Gorbachev

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The moment when things clicked into place for me was when Herzog, in his trademark Bavarian deadpan, read a quotation from Alexander Yakovlev, one of Gorbachev’s key advisers during perestroika: “It was as if we were blind men trying to trade a mirror to deaf people in exchange for a balalaika”—a Herzogian image if there ever was one.

The New York Times by Ben Kenigsberg

But if Meeting Gorbachev finds its subject mostly staying on a pro-peace, antinuclear message — and it’s a script that’s hard to argue with — Herzog shapes the film into a study in how world events often come down to quirks of character and circumstance.

New York Magazine (Vulture) by Bilge Ebiri

Meeting Gorbachev is a hagiography, but it’s unafraid to position itself as such; Herzog makes his case proudly and passionately.

Slant Magazine by Chris Barsanti

Werner Herzog’s documentary is a rare example of the arch ironist’s capacity to be awed not by nature but by man.

CineVue by Christopher Machell

Herzog has a knack for extracting pithy, poetic responses from his subjects, but here he outdoes himself.

IndieWire by David Ehrlich

Not since Klaus Kinski has Herzog aimed his camera at such an uncontrollable subject, and that includes the erupting peaks of “Into the Volcano” and the radioactive crocodiles in “The Cave of Forgotten Dreams.”

Variety by Jessica Kiang

We might have hoped for a more sparky encounter, but Meeting Gorbachev, though consistently engaging, is less a fireworks display than a fireside chat, and so feels curiously like an opportunity missed.

The Playlist by Jordan Ruimy

All thanks to Herzog’s keen eye at having a continuous fluid flow to the story and his subject’s willingness to lay bare in front of an audience, this is one of the most important documentaries of the year because it still feels fresh and relevant to our times.

The A.V. Club by Mike D'Angelo

The movie finally achieves some belated emotional power when it addresses, in its final minutes, Gorbachev’s beloved wife, Raisa, who died of leukemia in 1999. It does so, however, via clips from an entirely different documentary, Vitaly Mansky’s "Gorbachev: After Empire" (2001). Why not just watch that film, since Meeting Gorbachev never so much as mentions any event that’s happened since?

The Hollywood Reporter by Stephen Farber

Herzog’s film may not be the final word on Gorbachev, but it is affectionate and candid and leaves audiences in a melancholy mood about the sometimes short-lived nature of reform.