A man loves a woman; that woman may love that man. But because of a weird Pact that man made with his friends he's deciding not to pursue said woman. She's aware of this pact and decides not to go after him either.
Then his grandfather comes up to him and states; ''You want to fool! Your a coward, you don't do anything ridiculous. Go out there and do a weird action; maybe then you'll have the right to ask for this girl's love''.
So the man drives off the deep end and joins the military. And goes off to war fighting against Azerbaijan.
Obviously there's more to the story than just that. There's a lot of bickering and family / friends squabbles going on and everything is becoming ever more heated with the Advent of the ever encroaching war between Armenia and Azerbaijan at the turn of the early 90s.
The film breaks between two major set pieces. One is the city of
Yerevan where the family is residing and dealing with all of their typical problems of Love, finance and self-fulfillment. While the other half of the movie is a typical War drama not unlike ''Saving Private Ryan''
The writing and acting compels you to care about the drama between all the characters. The action directed well enough that you're entertained and even a little concerned for the characters while they're in battle.
A fairly solid flick.
There's nothing too overly unique about is General format. All of its interest coming its location and situation.
Dealing with a war that's rarely seen outside of the Caucasus region. The film still maintains that old Soviet charm of simple yet impactful monologues between two to three different people usually talking about simple philosophy or just the stresses of Life.
While at the same time having a surprisingly Hollywood approach to its fight scenes with lots of long zooming camera shots; over the top music and one or two pieces of CGI which I would have preferred weren't there but I'm understanding of why.*
There were a few scenes where I found it difficult to discern what was happening. Like cutting over to a random encounter inside a military headquarters building where a special defence unit barges into a high brass meeting and precedes to tell everyone to let one of their men out of jail or he'll have them all killed.
I don't remember any previous scenes before that connecting to well with what was happening here. But I also realise that some of my confusion might come down to the subtitling that doesn't entirely mix with the sentences on screen. It's not a big problem and it doesn't matter at the end of the day. You can still enjoy most of the basic conversations and the overall plot is accessible.
One or two of the music cues felt a little manipulative. They would play a happy or sad tune at a moment where no music was needed at all.
All in all it's a very accessible movie. It's well-acted, well-directed and it cover serious subject matter that's like elected by a large part of the world. Or maybe just Hollywood as they like to think that they're the world of film. Overall is just enjoyable.
It should be noted that the film is heavily connected with the Armenian defence Ministry. So it's pretty obvious that there's going to be some biases every hear in there.
However it wasn't this glorified as I was expecting. It didn't try to glorify the Armenians that much above their enemy and they even have a scene where one of their men flat-out lies to another guy just to get information. But still best to be mindful that they're probably stretching some of the truth of the war when they depict it.
*There's a scene towards the middle of the film involving to Soviet Attack Helicopters (passably
Mil Mi-24) being used by the Azerbaijani to attack an Armenian Squad. The helicopters are clearly CGI in design and a rocket that destroys one of them create the CGI explosion. It's a little distracting given how much of a focal point the scene is.
All in all it's a very accessible movie. It's well-acted, well-directed and it cover serious subject matter that's like elected by a large part of the world. Or maybe just Hollywood as they like to think that they're the world of film. Overall is just enjoyable.
It should be noted that the film is heavily connected with the Armenian defence Ministry. So it's pretty obvious that there's going to be some biases every hear in there.
However it wasn't this glorified as I was expecting. It didn't try to glorify the Armenians that much above their enemy and they even have a scene where one of their men flat-out lies to another guy just to get information. But still best to be mindful that they're probably stretching some of the truth of the war when they depict it.
*There's a scene towards the middle of the film involving to Soviet Attack Helicopters (passably
Mil Mi-24) being used by the Azerbaijani to attack an Armenian Squad. The helicopters are clearly CGI in design and a rocket that destroys one of them create the CGI explosion. It's a little distracting given how much of a focal point the scene is.
But I also understand why they did it. Who has the ability to just pick up to Old Soviet helicopters and fly them around for their movie?
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