A long time ago, when I saw Hiner Salim’s wonderful film Roofs of Paris and wrote about it, my friend recommended me a film by the same director, Vodka Lemon. It took me a long time, but I finally saw it yesterday. Frankly, the film was somewhat unexpected for me – both in the scene and in the characters, but the style of the director
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A long time ago, when I saw Hiner Salim’s wonderful film Roofs of Paris and wrote about it, my friend recommended me a film by the same director, Vodka Lemon. It took me a long time, but I finally saw it yesterday. Frankly, the film was somewhat unexpected for me – both in the scene and in the characters, but the style of the director was quite recognizable, although, as I think, in Roofs of Paris he has become more mature. So, the scene of the action, quite conditional, in my opinion, is some completely rotten village in the mountains of Armenia, where Armenians and Kurds live, using Russian as the language of international communication, while there are no conflicts on national grounds. It’s hard to say what time the events take place, but they’re also quite conventional and sometimes not very plausible, but that wasn’t the director’s goal. As always, the goal of the director is to show people, their essence, their actions, very diverse in nature - both vile, dishonest, and noble, yes, there are still individuals capable of noble deeds. What’s nice is that the end of this film, despite the fabulousness, thanks to the personality of the main character Hamo, the indomitable retired Russian military (judging by the stars he tears off his uniform before selling it, almost a colonel), still inspires optimism. Despite the seemingly absolutely hopeless life circumstances and the already elderly age, it is probably love. Visually, the film is also shot wonderfully - this chilly snowy whiteness throughout most of the film and the spring streams at the end carry an obvious semantic load. And, of course, a little "French" - during the film we often hear the song "Snow Falls" Salvatore Adamo - Sicilian, singing in French. This director, as it were, marks his way, because he is an Iraqi Kurd who fled there at the age of 17, first to Italy, then settled in France.
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