Pa Rubika Celu

A discreetly comic journey through the history of Soviet Latvia, On Rubiks’ Road takes as its vantage point a cycle track connecting Riga to Jurmala. Who would think, on seeing the daily procession of dog-walkers, teenagers on mountain bikes, families in search of pastoral routes or hurried joggers, that this track is still linked to the memory of Alfred Rubiks, the former leader of the Latvian Communist Party, who savagely repressed the 1991 attempt to gain independence? Rubiks’ election to the European Parliament, during the shoot, intensifies the film’s question: can the landscape, by dint of scrutiny, reveal the reason why history repeats itself?

Charlotte Garson