#Correction to "Prisoners of the mountain" review.

 
Correction to Prisoner: A sharp-eyed commentor advises me that the principals (if not principles) in this film are Georgian, not Afghan(stani), the war the Chechen not Afghan(stani). Grateful to be set straight, apparently through Wiki-Whatzis, who knew all along. You might be tempted, now, to say “Chechen, Afghan(stani). Yeah, like there’s a difference…” Sadly, they seem to be butchering each other over there on account of just that difference in particularly unfunny fashion. To this dumbo viewer at any rate, who did not spot the authentic history, the altered setting actually adds yet another asset to the film’s considerable charm: it leaves the issues of war, occupation, race, otherness abstract and divorced from time and place (at least for those ignorant of the precise cultural discriminators) and a yet broader comment on those same issues. A very nearly perfect little movie if not a very nearly perfect little review of it. In a related matter, a correction to my review of Citizen Kane: Marilyn Monroe did not discover radium.  Alan Farrell

Comments

[PirateLaddie]

Much better picture of Farrell. There's already too much chest candy floating around the web & Farrell's prose style and apparent devil-may-care attitude in carrying out his duties here at SST are better served by the current photo. Keep up the good work.

[fasteddiez]

Russian last names with an ending of "DZE, and Shvili" are usually Georgian.

[fbg46]

Are you sure she didn't discover radium? Maybe under her real name Marilyn Curie?

[citizen]

In 1966 there was a slapstick, very American-esque Soviet film called "The Caucasus Prisoneress" (title mistranslated on imdb.com), involving the kidnapping of a Georgian girl by Caucasus yokels (based on the three stooges). The girl was saved by a Russian bumbling hero. The "locals" were played by Russians.

There might be a similar ethnic reason behind the casting for "Prisoner of the Mountain". The movie wasn't anti-Chechen, it was more an indictment of the war and the Russian military. There is a memorable scene where a Russian soldier trades his pistol for some vodka, the gun then being used, presumably by insurgents. But the topic is still sensitive enough that I could see how there might be some reluctance. Indeed, there might even be danger in playing in such a balanced flick.

I wonder if something similar happened in the movie "Not without my daughter" where the principal "Iranians" were Latino, Jewish, and Indian or in Gibson's "The Passion" where all the actors were Italian or otherwise "Christian," with the notable exception of Maia Morgenstern.

In 1969 there was the Russian movie "White Sun of the Desert", set in Turkmenistan just after the Russian Civil War. It was about an "enlightened" Bolshevik hero battling it out with misogynist Central Asians. All the "locals" were Russians or Georgians.

[Jim Ticehurst]

Like you always told me Alan "Feet and Knees together and Keep Your Eyes on The Horizon" You gotta stay alert or you will never figure out how the Kuh Scheise Got on the Roof..