The film begins and ends on 16 October 1999,<ref name="BBC 1999"></ref> with 20-year-old Kolia, (Maksim Emelyanov), a Russian Ground Forces recruit, recording and narrating with a handheld video camera, as young, drunken Russian soldiers taunt, terrorize, and finally execute a civilian Chechens couple in front of their teenage daughter Raissa (Zukhra Duishvili).<ref name="theguardian" /> Kolia's story is one of four personal narratives that unfold against the backdrop of the ruins of a village in Chechnya, the flood of civilian refugees from the village, and a family partially reunited. We first meet Kolia as a pot-smoking guitar player in Perm, 2300 kilometers from the Chechen border, where he is taken into custody for possession of drugs and drafted into army service. As a new recruit, he undergoes a brutal transformation from an innocent youth into a "dehumanized killing machine."<ref name="variety" /> When Kolia's fellow soldiers, kill the Chechen couple, the couple's nine-year-old son, Hadji (Abdul Khalim Mamutsiev) hides and watches and when it is safe, he is able to carry his infant brother to relative safety. The trauma of his parents' death renders him mute. He is helped along the way to the refugee camp by other Chechen refugees and eventually, he is befriended by Carole (Bérénice Bejo), a French-born, Chechnya-based NGO worker. Carole, who works as a researcher and representative of the Human Rights Committee of the European Union, helps Hadji regain his ability to speak. Hadji's elder sister Raïssa searches for both brothers. Carol interviews Helen (Annette Bening), a International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement worker, and places hope in the International response to the Second Chechen War to the centuries-old struggle of the Chechen people. Hadji is reunited with his siblings. The film ends at the beginning, with Kolia's filming of the attack on Hadji's family.
Le film se passe pendant la seconde guerre de Tchétchénie, en 1999. Il raconte, à échelle humaine, quatre destins que la guerre va amener à se croiser. Après l’assassinat de ses parents dans son village, un petit garçon fuit, rejoignant le flot des réfugiés. Il rencontre Carole, chargée de mission pour l’Union Européenne. Avec elle, il va doucement revenir à la vie. Parallèlement, Raïssa, sa grande sœur, le recherche activement parmi des civils en exode. De son côté, Kolia, jeune Russe de 20 ans, est enrôlé dans l’armée. Il va petit à petit basculer dans le quotidien de la guerre.
Cecenia, 1999. Fra un bambino sopravvissuto alla guerra e una donna che lavora per una ONG si sviluppa un rapporto speciale.
Ispirato a "Odissea tragica" di Fred Zinneman (1948).
čeština
日本語
한국어
język polski
עברית
大陆简体
Türkçe
русский язык
English
français
italiano