‘January’ Review: An Artist Searches for Himself Amid Latvia’s Independence Struggle

History currently repeating itself lends a particular frisson to Latvian theater, opera and film director Viesturs Kairiss’ “January.” It takes place in early 1991, when the nation’s push for independence (alongside other Baltic states) met with armed Soviet resistance even as the U.S.S.R. was falling apart. Those historical events are interwoven with vaguely autobiographical fiction revolving around a mildly nonconformist Riga film school student, one admittedly drawn much as the director was himself in that time and place. With Moscow leadership again hawkish toward retaining and/or regaining territories of a former empire, this flashback has particular resonance, amplified by the… Read Full Article