The documentary film “Human Stories from Days of War and Peace” became the breakthrough film during the “Golden Apricot” film festival, and won in a couple of categories. It was a breakthrough for the Armenian audience as well. The Armenian audience is known for conformism, and had started to forget that living with the psychology of the lost and the adapter is not in the least a lifestyle. There was an epic story, and the people living beside us had turned into heroes by the dictates of time. There was a war, and now everything is peaceful, but now there are many more issues and questions than years ago when people were struggling for the land of Karabakh and were ready to die in the struggle.
The film, which centered on human destines, intertwined two periods – the Karabakh war and the days of peace. The author of the film,Vardan Hovhannisyan, worked as a Russian news cameraman during the days of the Karabakh war and managed to gather rather rare archives. “I didn’t think that I was recording a film; I was simply creating my archive, and for many years I didn’t want to return to the films and look at the past again,” says Hovhannisyan.
The film director says that the idea of creating a film was born when his son asked him “Daddy, have you been a soldier?” The journalist-cameraman (also a captive for a certain while) Vardan didn’t expect to hear that question, because many people were becoming soldiers during the Karabakh war. Many didn’t even think about why they were going to war and what was waiting for them. Those questions were secondary because it was a matter of saving the land and the family, and if it was necessary to pick up a gun and get out to the battlefield, then they would do that. Even teachers, mailmen, and writers would dress in camouflage. There was no other way. Going out to the battlefield was like an inner demand that was as natural as breathing. The film director only used the scenes of five days of battle from the four-year war to picture the life of a couple of soldiers in a place not far from the battlefield. The heroes of the film, whom Vardan calls “co-authors”, talk about their friends, family, the victims, and the bright future that awaits them after the end of the war. The camera becomes the silent recorder of their thoughts and expectations.
“We only know about the victims and the soldier that became a general during the war, but not the rest of the modest and average soldiers. I want for us not to forget the people who went to war and currently live in villages and are forgotten,” says the film director. Felo, Kajik, Tchut, and Anahit went to war in the name of a peaceful life, but when the war was over, it turned out that there were many more questions and issues in our lives than the answers that were given.
They were soldiers/brothers
Hovhannisyan decided to go and find the heroes of his film twelve years after the end of the war, in order to understand how the modest soldiers were doing. The presentation of the heroes in different situations and periods of time became the secret to the success of the film “Human Stories…”By remembering the past and getting acquainted with the present, you realize that people have changed a lot, and many of them have lost their illusions. It turns out that the 12-years of peaceful life has not brought them inner peace. Tchut has found himself in jail, Kajik is in a psychiatric center, Felo has lost the meaning to his life – his family – and practically has no communication with his children. Twelve years ago it was those children that Felo’s smile and hope was aimed at, and his children gave him strength. Now all of his strength has been consumed, while his dreams have lost meaning. “Human Stories…” is a chronological film where there is no playing; on the contrary, everything is real.
“During the war we were happier than we are now. We knew where we were, but now we don’t,” says one of the heroes of the film. The heroes of yesterday are now people who are confused and lost, people who want to live like heroes, but feel like they are losers. During the war there was the concept of “fraternity” which gave strength, and then the word “we” was transformed into “I” and people weren’t able to understand in the name of what they were living when there was no war on land, rather it was the struggle of the “ego”. Today’s reality has thrown the people who have seen war into a trap; like everybody else, they too don’t strive to open their own store or kiosk, rather they simply live. They gather with friends, “get a bite to eat”, talk about their deceased brothers, and go fishing. They are no longer able to live looking towards the future, because the present doesn’t allow them to do that. The film ends with the birth of a child; Tchuto has a son and that is the only bright spot that the film director sees.
The story of one of the heroes, Kajik, is very interesting. He hasn’t gone crazy, but he has found himself in a psychiatric center. Returning to his native village after the war, he finds that the water pipe has been privatized and that his family has been deprived of water. The owner of the pipe, who lives in the neighboring village, tells him: “I won’t give you water; it is mine. Whoever sent you to war should give you the water.” Kajik goes home and thinks for a couple of days and comes to the conclusion that by going out to the battlefield voluntarily, he must make a decision on his own and he did…He takes gunpowder and starts shooting the roofs of the houses of the nearby village. Who said that the war is over? The war has intensified and has become more desperate. Kajik is sentenced, considered an aggressive man, and is sent to a psychiatric center. Who is right in that situation? Only God knows, but we are sure that sometimes all of us feel the need for gunpowder. We feel the need to differentiate between the fake and the real so that our children will know that not everything must be done to get rich quickly.
“I can’t tell my son not to go to the army. But I also can’t tell him go to the army. That has to be his decision, but he has to know in the name of what he is going to serve. I wanted to show that if Felo, Armenak, and Kajik didn’t go to war, we wouldn’t have the rows of pipes and the festivals, rather we would have lost our city, says Hovhannisyan, who says that the rich don’t like to watch this film. It frustrates them, and reminds them of the people whose existence they prefer to forget about. Film critic Mikayel Stamboltsyan said the following as he presented this film to “Golden Apricot”:
“We must talk about serious issues, and I am happy that dialogue is started by films.” He promised that besides at festivals, “Human Stories…” will also be shown in Armenian schools and Marzes, so that the dialogue that began with the film will continue. The film has already participated in a number of festivals, of which the most significant is the American “Traibeka” festival. During that festival, started by Robert de Niro, the film director was considered as the best documentary film director of 2007. Interestingly, there is no word or scene against the Azeri in “Human Stories…” and there are no bloody war scenes or ardent patriotic speeches, but the film is real, clean-cut, and totally about nationalism. In our days, that word has become meaningless and has turned into a slogan. The young generation usually doesn’t believe in slogans, and only believes in the lives of real people, and wants to be like today’s heroes who privatize pipes, drive cars without respect for transportation rules, and open “restaurants” for eating and drinking every day. Seventeen-year old young people don’t even know that there have been people like Felo or Anahit, who has worked as a nurse during the war and has saved the lives of tens of soldiers, and as well as that don’t know those people still exist.