TANGERINES (Mandariinid) B+
Estonia Georgia (87 mi)
2013 ‘Scope d: Zaza
Urushadze
I want to be with you
again
Even when I fight, I am with you in my dreams
I´ll be back, I´ll sail back on a paper ship
I´ll come back to you from over the seas
Don´t believe it if they say I won´t come back
I will come back to you
Even when I fight, I am with you in my dreams
I´ll be back, I´ll sail back on a paper ship
I´ll come back to you from over the seas
Don´t believe it if they say I won´t come back
I will come back to you
—Qavagadi Navi (A
Paper Boat), by Georgian poet Irakli Charkviani, a song that was hugely popular
among fighters during the war in 1992
Films have a way of resurrecting periods of history that
time forgot, though those involved will never forget. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in
December 1991, the Caucasus region was the site of endless conflicts, as the suddenly
independent nation of Georgia broke out into a bloody civil war, where those on
the far western part of the country known as Abkhazia, a conglomeration of
Armenian, Greek and Turkish descent bordering on Russia and the Black Sea, were
fighting for their own Christian and Islamic independence from Orthodox
Christian Georgia in the 1992–1993 War in Abkhazia. Russia sided with the Abkhazian separatists,
sending in mercenaries from Chechnya to fight against the Georgians, while
caught in the middle was a small community of Estonians, mostly farmers, who
had lived there peacefully for more than 100 years, though they were originally
part of a colonialist Russian resettlement program in the mid-19th
century. When war broke out, most
Estonians returned home to be repatriated in their own suddenly independent
nation in the Baltics, which is a good distance away (about 1500 miles,
across the bay from Finland, see here on a map:
Countries ). But not everyone went. While the film might recall Danis Tanović’s
NO MAN’S LAND, an insightful look at the absurdity of the 1993 Serbian-Bosnian
conflict, this approaches the madness of war from a far more humane view, becoming
what is arguably the most polite anti-war film on record, one that accentuates a
more civilized and genteel approach to resolving conflicts. The first Estonian film to be nominated for
an Academy Award, it was nominated in the Best Foreign Film category, and is
also the first joint Georgia-Estonia film production. Set somewhere in rural Abkhazian territory, two
elderly Estonian farmers work feverishly to harvest their tangerine crop before
the war draws near. Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak,
recently awarded male performer of the century in Estonia) is busy making
wooden crates while Margus (Elmo Nüganen) is up on a ladder working in the
orchard. Realizing it’s only a matter of
days to safely sell their crop in town before most everyone flees the region,
they take a moment to marvel at the beauty of the tangerines.
Their meditative moment, however, is interrupted by the
arrival of a military jeep, where Ahmed (Giorgi Nakashidze), a Chechen
mercenary fighting with the Abkhazians, hails Ivo and demands food for himself
and a fellow soldier. Surprised anyone’s
remained on their farms in the middle of a war zone, Ahmed affectionately calls
him “Grandpa,” showing respect for his generosity and his bravery before
heading back to the front. After another
brief pause, thunderous gunfire erupts in front of the house, where a shootout leaves
bloody casualties, including a severely wounded Ahmed, who can’t walk, while
his friend and all of the Georgian fighters are dead. “You shouldn’t yell,” Ivo warns the soldier,
“Otherwise you might die.” With the help
of his neighbor, Ivo brings the wounded man into his home and dresses his
injuries, while disposing of the jeep, driving it over a hill and letting it
tumble down into a protective ravine. “I
thought it would explode,” Magnus observes with a touch of wry humor.
“They explode in the cinema.” To which Ivo replies, “Cinema is a big fraud.” While burying the dead, Ivo
realizes one of the Georgians is still alive, though he remains unconscious, a
soldier named Niko (Mikhail Meshki), who is brought into a separate bedroom
with his wounds treated as well. Slowly
he feeds them and nurses them both back to health, each vowing to kill the
other when they gain enough strength. Ivo,
however, lays down the law that no one will be killed in his home, demanding
each man swear an oath to that effect.
Begrudgingly, both agree, but that doesn’t stop all the verbal taunts
and hate threats that seem to accompany every meal. The infusion of hatred is not something that
exists in a vacuum, but is part of the ethnic animosity that has contaminated the
region seemingly forever, where both sides eye the other with outright suspicion
and contempt. After a while, Ivo
exclaims, “What is it with you guys, what gives you the right to kill?” Suggesting both have family members back
home, he literally scolds them for disrespecting their memory and acting so
childish.
Filmed in Guria, Georgia, part of the appeal is the haunting
beauty of the rural region, beautifully shot by Rein Kotov, mostly with a
static camera, who seems to admire those special moments when night turns to
day and the sun tries to push through the hovering fog, providing painterly
outdoor images, while most of the action is confined indoors, giving the film a
theatrical feel, where the lengthy recovery period for each soldier adds to the
timelessness of their hostility, which after awhile becomes ridiculous,
especially since they’re being treated with the utmost respect by Ivo, whose
extraordinary generosity and kindness is above and beyond anything either one
of them deserve. This is a completely
different portrayal of honor than that expressed in American
Sniper (2014), an American movie that has made a half a billion dollars,
which glorifies a soldier participating in the bloodbath of wartime Iraq, and
then bestows him with medals for having killed so many of the enemy, not one of
which leaves him with any regrets, or any sense of personal satisfaction. If anything, the film represents a hollow
sense of heroism, one that glorifies war as nationalistic patriotism, and then
condemns anyone who might criticize or suggest otherwise as anti-American. This sense of self-righteousness and moral
high ground is not reserved for Americans, but motivates any number of suicide
bombers and religious zealots who all too eagerly sacrifice their lives for
what they believe is a noble cause. This
kind of thinking, however, is not only shortsighted, but is largely fueled by
hatred and religious animosity, where bigotry seems to guide the actions in
war-ravaged regions. Similarly, Ahmed
vows to take revenge on Niko for the death of his comrade, “It is a holy thing
for us. You will never understand.” Showing Biblical wisdom, Ivo inquires, “To
kill a person who is sleeping, even if he is unconscious? This is holy for you as well? I didn’t know.” As it turns out, both recovering soldiers
have a fierce devotion to their ideals of honor, each respecting the
fair-mindedness of Ivo and an appreciation for having been kept alive, where
honoring their pledge to him on a daily basis seems to drain them of their
mutual hatred. Nonetheless, the
abruptness of the finale comes as something of a surprise in this strange
parable about heroes and villains, where it’s hard to tell one from the other
sometimes, leaving one to ponder whether we should be so quick to condemn and annihilate
one another, especially those we know so little about. The Georgian music provided by Niaz
Diasamidze, Niaz Diasamidze - Mandarinebi (HQ) (14:25), provides a kind of mournful, almost Béla
Tarr solemnity that only heightens what transpires onscreen, while the
extraordinary final sequence that includes Irakli Charkviani’s Qavagadi Navi (A Paper Boat), Mandarinebi - Ending Soundtrack YouTube
(4:02), is used to stunning effect, like a requiem for the dead, honoring and
paying tribute to those who were never able to return to their homeland,
including Charkviani himself, who died prematurely, reportedly of heart
problems in 2006, posthumously awarded Georgia’s most prestigious Rustaveli Prize in 2013 for “his
significant contribution to the development of contemporary Georgian
culture.”
