'The Singing Revolution' - Movie Review

"The Singing Revolution" tells the story of Estonia's oppression by and eventual escape from the rule of the USSR. It's narrated by Linda Hunt. The main premise is that the Estonian's love of singing kept their national pride alive for fifty years despite the Soviet efforts to crush their will. I found the narration unnecessarily heavy-handed and distracting: Hunt spends her time telling you how horrible it all was, when letting the facts speak for themselves would have been more effective. The USSR invaded Estonia in 1939 under a pact they made with Hitler. Just because Hitler broke that pact didn't mean the USSR left Estonia. They didn't leave until the break-up of the USSR in 1991 (which makes it dubious to me that this was a "revolution:" they would have escaped from the USSR with or without the singing at exactly the same time). But the movie is big on the idea that the very popular national gatherings to sing, where songs of national pride were often sung despite the objections of the USSR, were what held the country together and drove it forward. Even based on the possibly over-optimistic story presented in the movie, I think it's something of an exaggeration to claim the singing liberated the country.