Movie Review SSJ

What strikes me about the documentary is that it is a statement of fact. The setting of “Three Melancholy Rooms” is the Chechen War. This is the first time I’ve seen a documentary that shows the war in its full glory, and I was a little worried about whether I would be able to endure the whole film.

The film begins by telling the audience that the film will consist of three “rooms”. The first room is called “Longing,” meaning “hope, expectation,” and is set in a military school for orphans on Kronstadt Island in front of St. Petersburg. The children are trained as soldiers at the military school, and their imaginary enemy is Chechnya. The director intentionally focuses on the details of their lives to illustrate that even though the children are trained in the rigors of the military school with a great sense of hatred every day, they are still children, and they can (and should) have a childish side, such as shouting at each other during arrangements and jumping on the beds in the dormitories. At the end of the first part, the children are allowed to call home, and they all look very excited because they are “looking forward” to going home to see the people who raised them and to see their hometown. The second room is called “Breathing” and the film is shot in black and white film to enhance the documentary feel of the film. The ramshackle house in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, is filled with the story of a sick and immobile mother and the three orphans who surround her bed and nurture her, who put down the story of their orphaned children and turn to poetic narrative, after all, even the Chechen war orphans in the St. Petersburg barracks can write poetry.

Whether in St. Petersburg, Grozny or the Ingushetia countryside, even without the indoctrination of adults about hatred, everyday media and lingering childhood gloom are repeatedly planting the seeds of evil.

Filmed on the occasion of the 2002 terrorist attack on the Palace of Culture at the Moscow Bearing Factory, the news scrolled through the black widow who died in her seat strapped with explosives after the gas attack, a sight that was in any case deeply implanted in the heart of childhood. The children of the barracks knew the enemy that threatened them, and the children of the Caucasus shed tears for their brave mother. They may even grow up together in school and play in the snow, but one day when they meet each other, the fire in their memories will ignite.

The director did not use three groups of film crews to film in three places at the same time, but followed the footsteps of the children, waiting for the St. Petersburg barracks to go on leave, then turned into the ruined Grozny, and with a car leaving the battlefield, to the Muslim prayer ceremony in Ingushetia pastures. A room a poem of hesitation, together relayed into a hopeless lament about the future.

In the early morning, the stallion blurs in the mist, the sleeping child does not want to be awakened by the cruel world. Orphaned children. The children have been forced to play war games with tanks and artillery since they were children. The most touching scene of the film is when the youngest child feeds his mother bread at her bedside and kisses her reluctantly as she leaves. The mother gnaws on enough bread to feed them for a week, crying and hating herself for not being able to take care of her innocent children because of her illness. The third room, entitled “Remembering,” is set in the Ingushetia Republic, west of Chechnya. A woman who was raped by Russian soldiers at the age of 12 finds 63 orphans from the ruins of Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, whose parents were killed by the Russian army. She herself has always denied that she is Russian.

I was interested in the director’s approach of shooting from color, to black and white, and back to color again. The visual change made the audience feel heavier, and the relentless destruction of human beings by the war was better shown to the audience. In the first room, “Longing”, there is an orphan named Popov in the military school. His dream is not to fight for his country against Chechnya and become a national hero, but to become another Pushkin in the country. What an ambitious ideal, and I think this is the “hero” idea that Russia needs.

People are good by nature. What the adults can’t solve, the scourge is extended to the innocent next generation. Without their consent, we transfer our hatred to the poor little children. As a result, their minds have to be clouded from childhood, and they cannot get rid of this inexplicable melancholy for the rest of their lives. Just like the child looking into the distance at the end of the film, he can not see his future, and we see only his face full of sadness, melancholy and helpless.