This imperfect film is a testament to a generation of European and Muscovian journalists murdered or broken by Muscovian imperialism. Cruelty that the West, Europe especially, turned a blind eye to. No punishment for the slaughter of civilians, little children, journalists and activists.
It is a portrait of brave journalists and the heinous crimes of Muscovy in Chechnya and Georgia. Agonisingly reminiscent of Muscovian crimes in Ukraine over a hundred years; crimes stretching from the Circassian Genocide, the Muscovian bombing of Syria and the current phase of the genocidal invasion of Ukraine.
It is a clumsy questioning of war and violence from a man whose earnestness humanises the film and earns sympathy. His European English and the presence of European tongues (Georgian, French, Italian) and British English make this film familiar to me as a European. His film makes him seem passive, but also it renders him relatable to us and as such, he brings a presence, a reality to the horrific imagery of brutality in Chechnya and Georgia. Images that should have been taken seriously as a genocidal Muscovy edges deeper and deeper into Europe.
The film is somewhat let down by the focus on "why do war correspondents go to war?". It takes a pseudo apolitical stance of "war is bad" and ends with the shameful line "if you go to war, war will come home with you". I found that grossly inappropriate: I live with refugees in a Western European country, they have lost homes, loved ones, limbs. I never went to war looking for "adventure" and yet war came to me as war came to Kvatashidze in 2008.
Also, the film doesn't offer any insight into a Georgia partially occupied and surrounded by Muscovian wars in Georgia, Ukraine, Chechnya and Syria. He can only offer an "Oh dear" at it all. His film turns wars, victims and the weak against the powerful into a personal inconvenience for reporters. His answer is evasion or escapism even as war blights his homeland.
The film is tone deaf and interesting. Alex Kvatashidze's mediocre narration inserts a mediocre person into these scenes of horror. Alex is an average person that we have all met once in our lives. He isn't an incredibly brave war reporter. He isn't an intellectual or an activist with moral convictions. He is a frustrating man who both impoverishes the film and elevates it with his presence. He makes the film a jarring mess that is hard to coherently sum up.
