A deeply affecting, dignified film that unfolds as meditatively and deliberately as an elegant game of chess, Zaza Urushadze’s Estonian Oscar-nominated drama is an ostensibly a focused retelling of the civil war between Georgia and Abkhazia. However, by keeping the cast of characters minimal, and confining the action to a modest house in Estonia, Urushadze’s film becomes both deeply personal and universal, highlighting the futility of violence, and the compassion needed to survive war – both literally, and emotionally.
Veteran actor Lembit Ulfsak takes the lead as Ivo, an elderly Estonian man who refuses to leave his war-torn village in Abkhazia, and spends his days helping neighbour Margus (Elmo Nuganen) harvest a crop of tangerines.
When two small bands of warring soldiers clash on Ivo’s land, he gives the only two survivors shelter in his home, slowly nursing them back to health. One of the fighters, Ahmed (Giorgi Nakashidze) is a Chechen mercenary fighting for Abkhazia; the other is Niko (Mikheil Meskhi), a Georgian volunteer. The two men vow to kill each other – but only when they are fully healed, and not in Ivo’s house, out of respect for their host.
The film is fraught with tension, and Nakashidze brings a wild streak to Ahmed that makes him terrifyingly unpredictable. However, as the two soldiers are forced to eat and converse together, they begin to recognise their shared trauma, sense of duty, and humanity. Meanwhile, Ulfsak imbues Ivo with such boundless compassion and wry humour that soon the two soldiers’ threats seem like sibling squabbles in front of an endlessly patient patriarch.
Urushadze is not sentimental, refusing to romanticise the humble rural setting. This realism and deep soulfulness of the film’s pacifist message just makes the tragedies hit harder, and the bloodshed feel all the more senseless.