Educational Media Reviews Online

A young Chechen man celebrates a wedding by firing off an automatic weapon into the skies and then stores it in a wall cabinet while the wedding feast takes place. This graphic action is a metaphor of the violent nature of life in Chechnya. Chechnya has a long history of “internal resistance and disrespect for authority” dating back to the days of Catherine the Great. Five years after the break up of the Soviet Union, the Chechens launched their struggle for independence from Russia.

At first they seemed to have succeeded, but after a series of devastating apartment bombings in Moscow, the Russians moved to suppress the rebels. The result has been massive destruction and the flowering of ethnic hatred that is now passing down into the younger generation. With both sides accusing the other of atrocities, there seems little hope for compromise or a peaceful resolution to the ongoing violence. Sadly, one young Chechen refugee now living in Russia, told the filmmakers he had no desire to marry, because if he had a son, “here he’ll be just another martyr.” This film provides a good, albeit brief, overview of the current situation in Chechnya. The camera crew for this documentary was smuggled across the border to avoid an escort of Russian soldiers, and they have made a conscientious effort to present both sides of the story. The final scenes end on a distasteful note when the interviewer ignored the guide’s request to back off in her final interview. She insensitively kept pressing a twelve year old Chechen boy, who has lost both his parents to the war, to explain why life in Russia was so difficult for him.