It is called Tangerines, a 2013 Estonian-Georgian film. Set in 1992-1993 Abkhazia War, it focuses on a carpenter, Ivo, and his farmer friend, Margus, Estonians who have stayed behind after most of their friends and family have fled back to Estonia. Margus has stayed in hopes of harvesting his tangerine crop, and Ivo is building the crates to hold them.
During the movie, two more characters are introduced: Ahmed, a Chechen mercenary who is wounded and helped by Ivo, and Nika, a Georgian who is wounded in the same incident and rescued by Ivo. Both men are cared for in separate rooms in the same home and both hold a passionate hatred for each other.
The movie becomes an interaction between the crops (Will they get harvested? Will Margus and Ivo be able to leave) and the hostility of Ahmed and Nika.
I cannot tell more without revealing the movie; that said, I would strongly recommend you see it if you have the chance. It asks questions about culture and land and war and reconciliation, but to my mind asks the most poignant and real of all: what do you do as an "outsider" that has lived somewhere for multiple generations to the point that this place feels like home and then war breaks out - how does one abandon a life one has known literally their whole life?
I will try to remember to look for this at flea markets, as we don't do Netflix. :-)
ReplyDeleteI hope you are able to Linda. It is quite worth your while.
ReplyDeleteAmateur farmers have noticed a similar phenomenon in cows, TB. There are documented cases where barns have caught fire, and the farmers have shooed the cows out to save them - and once they're out they all want to turn around and go back in. You gotta know when to walk away... and when to run, as the old song goes.
ReplyDeleteAge has something to do with it as well. Old folks like me are better off dying at home, maybe, than dying somewhere else on the run.
Glen, I think that was an underlying theme of the movie: men who had lived their whole lives in the same place doing the same thing, where did they have to run to? What life would they have as a 70 year old refugee?
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