In the Swedish town of Gullspång, Kari and May meet a woman who looks exactly like their sister Lita who died more than 30 years ago. No coincidence: Olaug was born on the same day as Lita in the rural north of Norway; a DNA test confirms that the two were born as twin sisters. The happy reunion with Kari, May and the rest of the family, though, soon shows the first cracks. At the age of 80, Olaug’s identity is shattered. Why did her parents give her away? Will she fit in with her new, deeply religious kin? She does not believe in divine revelations. Instead, she is haunted by Lita’s alleged suicide – and indeed her investigative research raises questions about the circumstances of that death.

At least at one point in the film, director Maria Fredriksson is audibly dumbfounded behind the camera. What starts as a feel-good film becomes a character study of identity, then a kind of true-crime and finally a mystery story. The direction takes it up a notch, sometimes to dramatic, sometimes to quite funny effect: The perfectly lighted country houses with portrait photos on the walls and the ironically suggestive use of music are reminiscent of “Twin Peaks.” Sometimes life writes the crazier plot twists.

In the passing busses and trams, people look out of the windows in disbelief. The reverse shot shows a crowd of protesters. Two dozen people perhaps, some holding signs, one shouting “Putin behind bars!” It is a symbolic image of the pathetic state of the Russian opposition. The year is 2017, the war of aggression against Ukraine is still to come. Over a period of several years, “The Last Relic” portrays people from different opposition groups: a student from the Marxist-Leninist “Left Block,” a teacher with sympathies for Navalny; a digger driver demands the redistribution of resources. These activists lack support, but not courage. One of them has just been released from prison and survived a hunger strike. The others must expect to be prosecuted at any moment.

The setting of this film is the Ural metropolis of Yekaterinburg. The bulk of the population, an insert announces, dreams of a “return to imperial glory.” Estonian director Marianna Kaat, born in 1965, has spent a considerable part of her life in the Soviet empire. She shows the majority society as a uniform crowd at military parades, contrasting it with the individuals of the opposition. Few films offer such insights into the latter’s continuing precarious situation.