Deserter

Colour, 35mm
Russia, 2002, 30 min
Section: Documentary Films in Competition

Synopsis

The closing titles inform the viewer that the protagonist hopes he will be understood and that he will be pardoned. He asks the filmmakers not to say where he lives because he still believes he can return home. We see anguished eyes in an intelligent face, and hear his testimony: he speaks of the reasons why he became a soldier fighting in Chechnya and why he eventually decided to flee. He now survives in snow-covered mountains among trees and ruins. The monologue, in which memories alternate with reflections, is interlarded with actual footage of all that makes up our notions of Chechnya: life in tent camps, training and actions undertaken by special units, firing blindly from dawn, searching Chechen houses – all accompanied by the cries of soldiers and local women, the roar of transporters, and helicopters in continuous flybys. Colour shots follow black-and-white ones, dramatic scenes intermingle with calm. Taken all together (including shots of war-ravaged Grozny and annihilated people – locals as well as Russian soldiers) the film creates a vision of a ghastly, insane world which defies description.

About the director

Sergei Bosenko (b. 1967, Odessa) served in the army (1987-89) and then graduated from Novosibirsk Agricultural Academy as a zoologist (1991) and then from Moscow’s VGIK film school, (1998). Filmography: The Last Glance (1993), Alternative Soldier (1994), Weisenborn in Moscow (1995), Semester Work (1996), Well, Good Luck, Kostya, Good Luck (1998), Chechen Gambit (2001), made in cooperation with Irina Semashko, who also worked with Bosenko on Deserter (2002).