One of my friend who watched this film in a film festival got this film and I happen to see it now. It is a simple and beautiful movie dealing about 'border issue'.
It's a Tajik movie from Tajikistan. It came in 2009. But the movie talks about a period around 1992 when Tajkistan got separated from USSR as a separate country. I watched the film with subtitles.
The story revolves around a girl called Nilufar in a hill-side village and her planned wedding and about a Climate observatory. The back drop is with two villages on the hills where Nilufar lives and works in the Climate observatory. Her marriage gets fixed with a guy whom she loves for long and he lives in the up-side village.
When her marriage is about to happen suddenly the army comes in and puts up a long fence between two villages saying that one side belongs to another country. And nobody can trespass the fence and if they had to cross the fence they should go to the security post 50 miles around and get permission and go other side.
Initially, the people were oblivious about this warning asking 'we were transacting between hills and down for our day to day lives without anybody's permission so far. why now ?'. But the army persists. School was at one side and the students are from another side. Hospital is caught at one side. People suffer with similar sort of problems and try to trespass the security fence by cutting it. Then the Army comes and plants land mines and barbed wire to stop people from crossing.
Now what happened to Nilufar's wedding, her mother's labour pains and to the cows of the lady etc are seen in a more practical down to earth manner.
We may not cry at the end but the movie definitely makes its impact on us. To question ourselves about what a border is and means.
The film is nicely photographed, with beautiful locations; no unnecessary music choices. It shows self-fulfilling village people; concerned about each other; friendly and caring. There is no deliberate scene to make any point. There is no heavy drama play. But still our heart is there.
I enjoyed this film thoroughly. You would also enjoy it.
