Arquivo

A veritable tour-de-force undertaken by Sokúrov and his team, this documentary was filmed on the arid frontiers of Tajiskitan with Afghanistan, is five and a half hours long and is divided into five parts. “We would work in places where war and its exercise are part of the routine. We would be, some of the days, tense, in wait of conflict; and other days, in the midst of battles in fact. There was only one certainty: there would always be victims, parents or friends. Always the same anguish and feeling of abandonment”, says the director. “People here in Russia are brought up always to be ready to fight. Our national idols are not men who, by working in peace, wrought anything close to genius or new for humanity. They are all of them war heroes.” Sokúrov regards this film as a “war diary” with a description of the young soldiers, but that also serves to bring to the surface the author’s innermost feelings.