The 3 Rooms of Melancholia (2004) ( Melancholian 3 huonetta ) ( Melancholia 3 rum )

The 3 Rooms of Melancholia (2004) (DVD) (*)

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Original Title: Melancholian 3 huonetta
Alternate Title: Melancholia 3 rum
Screened, competed or awarded at:
Sundance Film Festival
Venice Film Festival
Other Film Festival Awards

Language Selections:
Dutch ( Subtitles )
English ( Subtitles )
Multi-lingual ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
Netherlands ( PAL/Region 0 )

Running Time:
106 min

Aspect Ratio:
Fullscreen

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 2004 and produced in:
Denmark ( Scandinavia, Iceland )
Finland ( Scandinavia, Iceland )
Germany ( Germany, Central Europe )
Sweden ( Scandinavia, Iceland )

Directed By:
Pirjo Honkasalo

Written By:
Pirjo Honkasalo

Actors:
Pirkko Saisio ..... Narrator (voice)

Synopsis:

The acrid fog of war is palpable in Pirjo Honkasalo's magnificent documentary, one of the saddest films ever made. The movie is evidence that when a director-cinematographer with a poet's vision photographs the material world, ordinary human faces and landscapes can leave impressions that transcend any words that might describe them. As the film journeys from a boys' military school on an island outside St. Petersburg, Russia, to Grozny, the ruined capital city of Chechnya, to an orphanage just over the Chechen border in the republic of Ingushetia, a sullen mist hangs over everything. That haze becomes a profound metaphor for the unknown into which humanity anxiously peers, searching for beauty but often finding terror.

'The Chechen war is the setting for the film. The inability of adults to resolve the war gives rise to a generation upon whom hatred has been visited like the issue of a deity incarnate. Children have taken on a burden of hatred which they believe springs from within. The transposed hatred casts a pall to the depths of their minds; they are accompanied throughout their lives by an inexplicable melancholia and sudden outbursts of rage'

Documentary. In three separate parts, 'Nostalgia' follows 9-14 year old recruits at the Kronstadt Cadet Academy; 'Breathing' takes place in the bombed out Chechen capital Grozny where a woman hands over her children to a representative of an orphanage in a refugee camp in Ingushetia; and 'Remembering' follows the orphans in the camp, and records their devastating stories.

This product was added to our catalog on Thursday 28 March, 2019.