The following movie was reviewed at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.
A Story of People in War & Peace
World Documentary Competition
2006, Armenia
Dir: Vardan Hovhannisyan
In 1994 a truce was arrived at between Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan, ending a bloody confrontation that had swept both nations after the fall of the Soviet Union. These two former satellites of the Soviet empire were newly independent and both desperate to claim land they both believed pertained to them. During the war, photojournalist Vardan Hovhannisyan followed a small platoon of men, and one female nurse, through their harrowing ordeal. Twelve years later and Vardan realizes that the memory of the incidents is slowly being forgotten by the younger generations. The reasons why the war was fought are being disregarded and overlooked.
So Vardan retraces his links to his fellow soldiers and decides to search for them so as to gain a better comprehension of what they as a people lost and won as a consequence of the war. He wants to see how his fellow men live in peace, opposed to how they lived in war. What he encounters is beyond him. He finds one of the men had an ugly divorce from his wife and is now on bad terms with his children. Another one of the men is in jail, and still another is locked up in a mental institution, haunted by nightmares of the battlefield.
He is able to converse with every member of his unit, and comes to the startling realization that not only were these people victims of war, but they were also victims of peace. The stories of unquantified loss are tear-filled and confoundedly real, as each person struggles with the recollection and retelling of the events during the war. Yet, with such a horrible moment of time burned into their minds, all the soldiers continue to foster a great love for their country and retain ultimate pride in having fought for their nation. For them, it was an honor to serve their homeland, and no matter how many hard times they face, they will never forget that.
The film is short and concise. It knows what its aims are and accomplishes them thoroughly. But perhaps it is a bit too short. As soon as you start caring for the men and women interviewed and establishing some emotion for their agony, they are gone. The film leaves one with the up-close knowledge of a horrible event, yet leaves the person as detached as it did before it had been shown. But then again, Vardan maybe realized that this subject was too hard to dig up and that making his fellow Armenians remember those days of combat and upheaval was something quite difficult, but at the same time utterly necessary.
/Film Rating: 8.5 out of 10
April 30th, 2007 at 7:28 pm
Interesting does this film talk about whose land is Karabakh officially? And does it talk about how armenians attacked Azeris while Azeris gave them their land to live peacefully?
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Dear Veten, to my knowledge the land of Kharabakh belongs to people of Kharabakh, who
live and governed by their democratically elected governement and do so quite successfuly
for last dozen of years.
Do you have any idea why would Armenians attack Azeris who gave them a land to live peacefully? Do you know in general why and how Azeris would “give a land” to Armenians to
live? Is it by any coincidence the same way as Ottoman turks “gave” Armenians land to live?
If so, it will be a tragic coincidence, because one beautiful day ottomans decided that they
don’t want Armenians to live at all. Then there was Nakichevan, where Armenians been living peacfully till they got expelled. So these guys above decided enough is enough, OK?
May 2nd, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Dear GT,
To your knowledge, I’m from Nakcvhivan and was born there, and spent all my years there. The only armenians who were living there they were all saw how disturbing their own nations were and were living with Azeris peacefully. When the war began, when you attacked us, they sold all their belongings and left for Armenia without discrimantion. My dad, took three armenian families to Armenia without and came back. My dad is only one example of a million.
Whever, the news began that armenians are attacking Garabag, no one believed it, it would happen because for years there was no problem with them. However, you would know better it was all Armenian project which was made years ago.
Nagorny karabakh historically was ours. but then you created the idea of autonomy. even if was autonomy, majority of the population was Azeri, if there were a fair election I’m sure someone Azeri would be elected.
You say why Turkey and Azerbaijan do not want you. It’s because its not easy to live with Armenians. For years, you were living under Ottoman empire. They give you their land to live. But what happened? When it was the World War, When Ottomans were losing their all land, all the men were in war except armenians. What did you? You attacked the Turkish villages where there was no man to confront you. You killed thousands of children, women, old people. An action like it wouldn’t left without a punishment. That’s why Ottomans decided you not to live there. And you began your “Armenian Genocide” which is the most ridicilious claim in the World ever. Turkey opened Ottoman archieves? Why don’t you go and investigate what actually happened? At that year, five times more Turkish were killed. Please put this fanatic armenian politics aside. You didn’t live as a normal people. Today in Azerbaijan, lezgins, kurds, jews, talishs, tats and many other ethnic groups are living peacefully. even armenians today live in Baku. Look at Armenia and Azerbaijan, then decide what nation is what.
May 3rd, 2007 at 7:38 am
good job Veten. You know what is good about arguing with you or any other turk or azeri about this issue? You say so many stupid and contradictory things, that there is no need to confront you. But the crown goes to your phrase: “You say why Turkey and Azerbaijan do not want you. It’s because its not easy to live with Armenians.” So you want easy living and evry once in a time decide to exterminate your not so easy neighbors???
Why do not you go and analyse your logic? First you say Ottomans were in war and loosing “their” land. You probably mean land of hungarians, bulgarians, yugoslavs, greeks and arabs that they have captured a while ago. And Armenians were not serving in army. Well they did, before turkish comand striped them of weapons and slaughtered them unprotected.
These Armenians must be good if without arms, being minority in a huge powerfull Empire can attack and kill thousands of people instead of living peacefully on a land “given” to them. I am sure according to your dumb arguments, Armenians attacked and killed thousand in Sumgait, before azeries took them and their belongings to Armenia? As did your kind father. Did you ever asked him how many Armenian families he took away or peacefully and kindly asked to leave Nakhichevan before you were born? Because dear Veten, there are statistics and it is hard to argue with numbers with your stupid logic. And those statistics does not speak good about what azeris and turks did. If you just look at the numbers you will see that huge, huge number of people of Armenian decent has lived peacefully in a lands “given” to them byt turks in Anatolia , Nakhichevan, Baku etc. And now these numbers stand veru close to zero! How I ask you did that evaporation of people happen? How those murderous Armenians killed thousands of turks and evaporated themselves, while number of turks did not decrease? Have you ever learned math? Or may be I should assume that when Armenians attack you and start killing all turks drove them and their belongings back to Armenia, or may be France, Argentina or USA, so they do not have to live with these uneasy to live people?
Keep talking Veten, more you talk better the rest of the world understands essence of what is going on.
June 3rd, 2007 at 1:35 pm
Please read the book Black Garden by Thomas de Waal or the Wikipedia article on on Nagorno-Karabakh and not Veten’s partisan crap. Thanks.
September 7th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
Thank you revealing the truth about Artsakh, a peace of land that has always been Armenian.
April 26th, 2008 at 5:12 am
Hello my armenian brothers and sisters.i am a young man who lived in Armenia for 6 years. after living in our holly land..i have learned somthing important which we all Armenians talk about…about the (GENOCIDE),about Gharapagh, which we will never forget and will always remember what (barbarians+moghols+tatars=savage=turkey+azerbeidjan)did and still doing.u know what sisters and brothers?don’t try to argue with this kind of people cause we Armenians are enough strong, educated, smart, clever.look out our history, NOAH nation we are. look out our artists painters musicians writers and more and more…we’ve been prooving our selves after all this disasters which came to us…and go and see our country…a perfect progress within few years.so brothers and sisters of Noahs nation , just wait and see how we are going to bring back our grand fathers and mothers smiles on their faces.and that time we all will drink the toast of our ARARAT and KILIKIAN ARMENIA.
Regards
Tro