Meeting Gorbachev

Having tackled volcanoes, albino crocodiles and death-row in his recent documentary work, Werner Herzog finally meets his match in the form of the eighth and final leader of the Soviet Union.

Suffering from poor health and well into his eighties, Mikhail Gorbachev remains a sharp operator and carefully undercuts Herzog's apocalyptic tendencies at every turn. What emerges instead is an engagingly tender portrait of a man who brought a unique blend of pragmatism and idealism to his premiership, and almost inadvertently helped to dismantle an empire.