Melancholian 3 huonetta (2004)

User Rating:

7.1/10   

Director:

Pirjo Honkasalo

Writer:

Pirjo Honkasalo (writer)

Release Date:

8 October 2004 (Finland)

Genre:

Documentary | War

Plot:

A searing examination of the unrelenting Chechen conflict, observed through the prisms of a Russian military boys academy, a war-torn town and a children's refugee camp. |

Plot Keywords:

Children | Boy | Politics | Enemy | Boy Soldier

Awards:

11 wins & 3 nominations

Cast

Pirkko Saisio

...

Narrator (voice)

Also Known As:

Melancholia 3 rum (Sweden)
The 3 Rooms of Melancholia (USA) (festival title)

Runtime:

106 min | Argentina:106 min (Mar del Plata Film Festival)

Country:

Finland | Denmark | Germany | Sweden

Language:

Russian | Arabic | Chechen

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Poland:15 | Finland:K-11 | Argentina:13

Filming Locations:

Chechnya, Russia

Company:

Millenium Film Oy

Trivia:

To make this film, Pirjo Honkasalo had to sneak in Chechnya as Russian authorities have restricted foreigners' access to the troublesome region.

Why label the already once disgraced as the hopelessly pitiful?

As a volunteer working with homeless children and youth in St Petersburg I had high expectations of the film 3 Rooms of Melancholia, since the film was said to reflect emotional and mental states related to children rejected from dysfunctional families and in general to the homeless.

However after seeing the film, I want to address that I am utterly shocked by the selfish and insensitive way the director Honkasalo dealt with the subjects of her documentary. Instead of giving the child interviewees a voice and a chance to talk about their lives before and during their military boarding school, this director serves us a series of narrated pathos-embedded statements depicting their awful backgrounds. As the homeless boys in the film are clearly working on restoring their crushed egos by trying to function progressively as group members in an institution accepted and respected by the society they live in, this immature, socio-pornographic primadonna comes with her pathological need to throw Gothic sensations out of her poetic dirt-bag. How little can a person understand the ashamed mind of the homeless and rejected and still be allowed to direct documentaries about this subject? The people awarding this documentary with human rights film prizes have little sense of the actual need the rejected and homeless have to be accepted as strong, progressive, dynamic characters who despite their socially disgraceful backgrounds can have their say in life without being publicly Kain-marked as the hopelessly pitiful.