Astrakan 79 is a documentary of two parts. The first two thirds are taken up with a recreation of the journey of a Portuguese fifteen year old, Martim, to Askatran in what was then the Soviet Union. The child of left wing activists, Martim left Lisbon on his year long adventure, sent by his parents to study modern practices in agriculture . When he arrived, it wasn’t what he expected. He had two passionate love affairs, made friends with South Americans, rather than the Russians, and eventually dropped out of the course, sleeping rough and getting picked up by the police. The story is told using photos Martim took, which have a beautiful, nostalgic grainy quality. The account is hypnotic, fascinating, the story of an adolescent caught up in the geopolitical matrix, like a lost chapter from The Savage Detectives. The film is rounded out with a lengthy interview between Martim, revealed to have become a potter on his return to Portugal, and his grown-up son. The interview is somewhat anti-climactic.
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