\n<\/p>\n
About two-thirds of the way through, Navalny is relaxing between interviews with Roher when a woman asks if he\u2019s getting annoyed by the questions about his past. No, Navalny tells her, in Russian: Roher can ask whatever he wants. She says that\u2019s fine, but that he seems agitated.<\/p>\n
Navalny stops and explains: \u201cIt\u2019s just that I realize that he\u2019s filming it all for the movie he\u2019s going to release if I get whacked.\u201d<\/p>\n
He wasn\u2019t exactly correct. A few months after its premiere, \u201cNavalny\u201d made its U.S. streaming debut, where it continued to garner attention. Meanwhile, alive but in prison, Navalny stayed connected to the world. He\u2019d built a strong social media presence, and he and his team (who remain in exile) kept posting during his imprisonment. And then, in March 2023, \u201cNavalny\u201d won best documentary feature at the Oscars, further evidence that the world was watching.<\/p>\n
But if \u201cNavalny\u201d wasn\u2019t intended as a postmortem, it\u2019s chilling to watch it after reports of his death. He knows what might happen but doesn\u2019t seem scared, just determined. The day of his return to Moscow, he appears nervy and intent, but with fellow plane passengers, he makes jokes about the weather, accepts their well wishes and watches \u201cRick and Morty\u201d as they descend. This is, you realize, a resolutely unflappable man.<\/p>\n
At the end of the film, Roher once again asks Navalny what message he would leave for the Russian people if he was imprisoned or even killed. Answering in English, Navalny responds, \u201cMy message for the situation when I am killed is very simple: Not give up.\u201d Recognizing there\u2019s more to the sentiment, Roher asks him to repeat his answer in Russian.<\/p>\n
\u201cListen, I\u2019ve got something very obvious to tell you,\u201d Navalny says rapidly and fluidly in Russian, according to the subtitles. He\u2019s looking straight into the camera and picking up steam as he goes. \u201cYou\u2019re not allowed to give up. If they decide to kill me, it means that we are incredibly strong. We need to utilize this power to not give up, to remember we are a huge power that is being oppressed by these bad dudes. We don\u2019t realize how strong we actually are.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n