Tangerines, 2013
Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak) lives and works in a small village that is all but abandoned as an armed conflict gains momentum nearby. Along with his friend Margus (Elmo Nuganen), Ivo hopes to harvest an orchard full of tangerines before being forced to move away. When two soldiers on opposite sides of the conflict, Nika (Misha Meskhi) and Ahmed (Giorgi Nakashidze), end up wounded and staying in Ivo's home, Ivo must walk a delicate line between the two sides.
This film is a great example of a simple but powerful story.
As with some international films, I am not very familiar with the conflict portrayed in this movie. And yet I do not feel that understanding that conflict is a requirement for picking up on the film's very clear themes about violence and decency. At one point a character literally says of the soldiers on both sides, "What if they just picked tangerines?".
So many elements of this movie fall into the category of simple-but-effective. And nothing anchors the film more than Lembit Ulfsak's performance as Ivo, a man in whom decency is so ingrained that it compels similar decency in others just out of pure expectation. In his treatment of Nika and Ahmed, Ivo becomes a mix of a father figure and a friend. He sees people, all people, as being human above all else: above nationality, above occupation, above age.
In my review of
God's Own Country I talked about the gentle power of kindness and the way it can effect change on others. This is another film that shows that dynamic very well. Ivo cares about other people. He asks them questions and really listens to the answers. For both Nika and Ahmed, you can see the way that Ivo's simple expectation of reciprocal respect impact their behavior and, eventually, their attitudes.
Zooming out, the film as a whole walks a lovely line between optimism and realism. The tangerine grove looks like a little slice of heaven, and the firing of guns and explosions feels borderline sacrilegious in a place of such peace and beauty. But many of those who fight do not see such beauty, or have had to shut themselves off from caring about it in order to survive. At its heart, there is tragedy in this film. For all that characters change and grow and mature, kindness alone cannot stop the beating of war drums. What we do see of the fighting between the two groups is messy, disjoint, and wasteful.
Something I have not fully thought through yet is the way that this film explores the idea of violence and war as erasing identity. There are no women in the film, at all (save a sometimes-discussed photo of Ivo's granddaughter). And with Ivo's family all gone, his own identity has become more abstract. The relationships that define who these men are (fathers, sons, brothers, uncles, etc) are conspicuously absent until the different characters tease it out of each other.
I had no complaints about this film. It is a simple story told with a strong eye for characterization. The performances are good and the scenery is gorgeous.