I don't normally give 10/10 to films, but this was easy. This isn't a slow artistic movie where nothing happens, critics laud and regular people don't get. This is something so good everyone can agree on. Everything counts for something, there is nothing there for nothing. And not for mere symbolism, but everything has a reason to be in the film - there are no stock characters, no stock conversations and no stock props.
Every word counts for so much that you couldn't cut out one second of the film without flinching. It is neither slow nor rushed, neither pro-Georgian nor pro-separatist, neither pro-settlement or pro-exodus... very few people could've made this same movie with this same script without ruining it with political biases like anti-Islam, anti-Russia, anti-Georgian, anti-Caucasian, anti-Communist, anti-separatist sentiment (or pro any of those). This movie is about the people in it and it does it well without the director getting caught up in tit-for-tat us-vs-them situation nor does it show some premonition of what is to happen 10-20 years from then.
It's a story about the early 1992, not 2001 or 1941. It's a story about an Estonian man living in Georgia. I personally know directors that would see this script and add so much history and awareness of the future that it would ruin it. This director goes without cheap attempts at referencing bigger historical events for the sake of contextualization.
Everything here is weighted and is kept in the movie after careful consideration, from the car to the cassette, from the photo to the guns, from the shrapnel to the shish kebabs.
No clichés, no stock characters, no distractions - just a great story.
If I had to say a bad thing about it - the music (the main theme), although great, gets repetitive after a while.
Easily film of the year and in my personal top 10.
Every word counts for so much that you couldn't cut out one second of the film without flinching. It is neither slow nor rushed, neither pro-Georgian nor pro-separatist, neither pro-settlement or pro-exodus... very few people could've made this same movie with this same script without ruining it with political biases like anti-Islam, anti-Russia, anti-Georgian, anti-Caucasian, anti-Communist, anti-separatist sentiment (or pro any of those). This movie is about the people in it and it does it well without the director getting caught up in tit-for-tat us-vs-them situation nor does it show some premonition of what is to happen 10-20 years from then.
It's a story about the early 1992, not 2001 or 1941. It's a story about an Estonian man living in Georgia. I personally know directors that would see this script and add so much history and awareness of the future that it would ruin it. This director goes without cheap attempts at referencing bigger historical events for the sake of contextualization.
Everything here is weighted and is kept in the movie after careful consideration, from the car to the cassette, from the photo to the guns, from the shrapnel to the shish kebabs.
No clichés, no stock characters, no distractions - just a great story.
If I had to say a bad thing about it - the music (the main theme), although great, gets repetitive after a while.
Easily film of the year and in my personal top 10.