TANGERINES IS AN ANTI-WAR FILM ABOUT NEUTRALS
During the 19th century many Estonians took up residence in Georgia. They were caught up as neutral parties in war when Vladimir Putin decided to support Russians living in Georgia by financing wars in 1992 and 2006 on behalf of the self-proclaimed republics of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and eventually forced to become citizens of Abkhazia along with ethnic Russians living in the breakaway region. Directed by Zaza Urushadze, Tangerines (Manderiid) portrays a fictional incident in the initial campaign with some similarity to Diplomacy, which won the Political Film Society award for best film on peace of 2014. Instead of a diplomat, the peacemaker is Ivo (played by Lembid Ulfsak), who makes wooden crates to ship tangerines picked from the ranch of his friend Margus (Elmo Nüganen). Both are Estonians who have remained in the Abkhazia region of Georgia (though filming is in Guria, still held by Georgia), after their families left in desperation for Estonia, a land where they would be strangers. They both feel responsibility to stay in Georgia because a lucrative bumper crop is ready for harvesting. While at work one day, Ivo hears gunfire and finds a soldier seriously wounded. Ivo brings Ahmed (Georgi Nakashidze), a Chechen mercenary paid by the Russians, into one of his bedrooms. When Ivo and Margus try to bury the dead soldiers, they find that Niko (Misha Meskhi), a Georgian, is alive after all, so he is brought into another of Ivo’s bedrooms. (The movie is dedicated to Levan Abashidze, a well-known Georgian actor who was killed in the Abkhazian war.) Their friend Juhan (Rivo Trass), a physician, is summoned to aid in their recovery until he leaves for Estonia. At first, the Chechen wants to kill the Georgian in retaliation for the death of his buddy Ibrahim. But Ivo says that they would have to kill him before he would allow Ahmed to kill Niko, and as a matter of honor both accept the terms of the one who has saved their lives. The plot is then set for the gradual transformation of both warrior patients from mutual hatred to mutual respect, with appropriate intervention by Ivo. A later arrival of Russian soldiers on the scene, who appear to despise Chechens, unexpectedly accelerates that transformation. Nominated for an Academy Award for best foreign film of 2014, Tangerines has been nominated by the Political Film Society for best film raising consciousness about the superiority of peaceful conflict resolution of 2015. MH
FAR FROM MEN IS ALSO ABOUT SEEKING NEUTRALITY IN A WAR ZONE
Albert Camus’s short story L’Hôte has now been brought to the screen. Daru (played by Viggo Mortensen) is a Spanish settler born in Algeria who was a major on the side of France in World War II. Having lost his wife in 1944, he is now a schoolteacher in his home province, but caught up in Algeria’s war of independence in 1954. Although he does not oppose independence, French soldiers drop off an Algerian prisoner, Mohamed (Reda Kateb), at his school with orders to take him for trial before execution as an enemy to Tinguit, a town two days away. But Daru does not want to do so. When Algerians come by, demanding Mohamed’s surrender, Daru kills their armed leader, whereupon the others run away, making their return with many weapons inevitable. Mohamed has killed his cousin for stealing food for his family and expects his cousin’s relatives to kill him, whereupon Mohamed’s younger brothers will die seeking revenge, so Mohamed prefers surrendering to the French so that his brothers will live. The two then leave on foot for Tinguit through the Atlas Mountains. They are captured by Algerian rebels, including a couple of Daru’s wartime buddies, but are soon attacked by the French, who kill all the rebels as “terrorists” (including the war crime of executing those who surrender) but spare Daru and Mohamed so that they can complete their journey to Tinguit. A sexual subplot with Spanish prostitutes appears to change Mohamed’s outlook so that Daru advises him to join the nomadic Tuaregs instead of surrendering. Will he? Meanwhile, Daru realizes that the war requires him to stop teaching. What will he do next? Directed by David Oelhoffen and filmed in Morocco, Far from Men (Loin des hommes) does indeed demonstrate Camus’s penchant to find absurdity, albeit in a most austere and ambiguously fatalistic manner. MH