RUSSIA: Film about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is the latest Russian blockbuster

Record ID: 574702

  • Title: RUSSIA: Film about the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is the latest Russian blockbuster
  • Date: 17th November 2005
  • Summary: MOSCOW, RUSSIA (RECENT) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (Russian) RUSSIAN FILM DIRECTOR FEODOR BONDARCHUK SAYING: "I am not going to comment on whether or not we won the war or not. We retreated from there, and those tasks that we set ourselves in Afghanistan were not completed. The campaign in Afghanistan was the final nail in the coffin of the USSR, that's unambiguous. But within each of the soldiers, they won their own personal wars."
  • Embargoed: 2nd December 2005 12:00
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  • Reuters ID: LVA9VXM31FZGOR905C0EHXPKORWW
  • Story Text: When the Soviet soldiers marched out of Afghanistan in 1989, the world as they knew it was about to end, and their story got lost in the fall-out.
    Now, with his record-breaking debut film "9th Company", Feodor Bondarchuk has put their experience back on the map.
    "This (film) was a tribute to our generation, to those people who came up to me and said, 'We are grateful to you, for you depicted us as heroes.' And indeed they are heroes," said Bondarchuk at his office in the Mosfilm Studios in Moscow.
    The film follows a band of young recruits from a wintry farewell with friends and family back home, through their often brutal training, up to a bloody denouement on a mountain top in Afghanistan.
    The Soviet Union's withdrawal from Afghanistan was as much an embarrassment as the U.S. retreat from Vietnam.
    And as with many Hollywood films about that slice of America's past, Bondarchuk zooms in on the personal here-and-now and leaves the politics to the history books.
    Whether the boys are giggling helplessly over a phallus fashioned out of plastic explosive or taking their turn with the camp's one available woman, what matters to Bondarchuk is their individual stories.
    "I am not going to comment on whether or not we won the war or not. We retreated from there, and those tasks that we set ourselves in Afghanistan were not completed. The campaign in Afghanistan was the final nail in the coffin of the USSR, that's unambiguous. But within each of the soldiers, they won their own personal wars," he said.
    His approach did not go down well with some Moscow critics.
    "You have to decide for yourself -- are you really going to shoot an honest film or are you going to take a brush in your hands and cover up the bloody nightmare with a shining coat of varnish," wrote the newspaper Nezavisimaya Gazeta.
    One million Afghans and 15,000 Soviet troops died in the fighting that followed the 1979 Soviet invasion. Moscow was trying to prop up a puppet government in Kabul but mujahideen, including Osama bin Laden, fought a draining guerrilla war against the occupiers.
    "The most important thing is that the country conducted a 10-year war there, and 15 years have gone by with only two films being made on the subject in our country. I therefore understand that you find yourself in a position of distinguishing yourself through your choice of theme, and so stimulate interest, or perhaps not, within the audience," said Bondarchuk.
    But although the reviews were mixed, Russian audiences have given it their vote. 9th Company has made more than 25.2 million U.S. dollars to date, the best performance of any film at the Russian box office, easily recouping its 9 million U.S. dollar budget.
    The memory of Afghanistan was one of the reasons Russia was so wary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
    Bondarchuk's famous father, director of the Oscar-winning reworking of Leo Tolstoy's "War and Peace", pulled strings so his son, now 38, did not have to fight in Afghanistan.
    After the success of "9th Company", Bondarchuk is reportedly working on a screen adaptation of Soviet science-fiction classic, set on another planet.
    The young director, who also acts and runs a restaurant business, has recently been involved in making television commercials.
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