Natalia Zubkova’s story in Black Snow is a distressing look at how authorities in Russia try to restrain their own people. Alina Simone’s documentary is an important portrait of a woman who does all she can to stand up to deceit.

When an abandoned mine catches fire beneath her hometown in remote Siberia, Natalia Zubkova, a formidable mother-of-three-turned-citizen journalist, steps up to aid her community. However, as her videos of the town’s toxic living conditions gain traction online, Natalia becomes the target of a ruthless government propaganda campaign. Undeterred, she bravely delves deeper into the scandal, unearthing a labyrinth of corruption.

Imagine you live in a gorgeous countryside, but the discovery of coal has the government digging up that beautiful land, leaving what used to be large roaming hills to nothing more than little islands connected by roads. Instead of a gorgeous lake or ocean, there are deep coal mines and factories. The land you knew is gone, and worse, the mining is polluting your town, people are getting sick, and tap water is either dirty or has worms in it. If that is even too much to comprehend, how about when it snows? That snow is black because of the coal residue from the factories that live in the air you and your children breathe in? That is the situation Natalia Zubkova finds herself living in Alina Simone’s engrossing documentary Black Snow.

Despite all of the evidence to the contrary that Natalia produces from her livestreams, the Russian government, thanks to the government-backed media, can take on her accusations, and in one case where there are fires underground near the towns she lives in, actually blame the townsfolk for illegal dumping—gaslighting them by faking rubbish and placing it in those areas so their film crews can pick up their side of the argument. When experts test the ground, they find that at one point, 4% methane is present, and 4.5% is potentially explosives. They inform a guard, who merely shrugs, nonplussed in the slightest and unlikely to tell his superiors what has been discovered. It is a wholly infuriating situation to witness, but we are not dealing with a woman who will back down.

Natalia is resilient, more than most humans could ever be. She was originally just a housewife who wanted to look after her family. Now, because of how much she cares for her children, she is fighting a fight that will be next to impossible to win. What Simone does so well in Black Snow is not just show the battle that Natalia is going through, but show us Natalia the person. While planning to put a vote on her channel about whether the votes for the last election were legitimate or not, she is making pickles and showing us a tool that seals jars. She isn’t just this astonishing fighter for people’s rights; she wants to live an everyday, happy life. She wants a nice house so all her kids can have a bedroom each so that she can grow fruit and be comfortable, but she can’t because her own government cares little for her and the people in her area.

Director Alina Simone knowingly puts herself at risk here in Black Snow. Natalia is aware that doing what she is doing willikelyur some form of punishment from her government. Still, in a scene where Natalia is driving, she warns Alina that they are being watched and that the government will most likely inquire about what she is filming. This increases when a group from another car stops the duo, wanting to “talk to the foreigner” and saying that maybe Alina will “come with them for a chat”. It’s truly, genuinely terrifying. It chills you how they have a stranglehold and a permanent sense of fear on residents and anyone who tries to show the world what they are doing.

This tension builds throughout Black Snow; you feel something will come to a head sooner rather than later. You honestly begin to fear for both Natalia and Alina. With Alina, she can leave the country and go back to the United States; Natalia is not in the same situation. She is doing all of this for the future of her children. Constant tailing, documenting and even online posts about a fake situation on if Natalia killed herself, it would be from desperation, are all done to make her stop. This causes her to spill into an inevitable paranoid state as the walls close in on her and her political comrades.

For as enthralling as Black Snow is, there are pacing issues present with the film. When the focus should be solely on Natalia, Simone often strays off to show us what is happening to people like her, but these go on for too long. Natalia’s story is enough with her fight for justice, so for the third act to go where it does while showing the strength Natalia has, it moves away from what she was fighting about, which Black Snow put so much effort into its audience caring about. As mentioned, that car scene is bone chilling and the abuse Natalia recieves to deter her, horrific. However, that was the story we were following with Natalia, not Natalia and the other directions the film goes to in the final third, even if you are invested in it and with her.

By straying off in these instances, the film loses the effect it could have held and causes it to have multiple threads that normally would demand more time. We could easily have just followed Natalia’s journey in her fight for her townsfolk, as well as one documentary that centres on how authorities in Russia try to derail and put off activists and journalists. You could go on, but diving into all of these areas in one film stretches itself too thin, which is a shame as there is such importance here that needs to be seen, especially in that first hour.

Despite these issues, Black Snow remains a film that deserves your attention. We all think we know how authorities restrict their citizens from speaking out, but actively seeing it and being chilled in those moments in the middle of the film shock you.

★★★ 1/2

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