August 2008
5 Days of War
During the Olympic Games opening day, someone was busy watching something definetly less nice than the amazing show in China: it’s in that day, in fact, that Russia entered Georgia space and a war started between the two. Someone says Georgia begun the fights and Russia was just defending people living in the separatist region of South Ossetia; others believe the opposite: it’s the giant Russia the one who started everything, while Georgian soldiers were just doing their best to avoid an invasion. There have been quite a lot of talks about that and I’m not going to say more: I just don’t know what exactly happened those days, but I definetly know people who really had awful time.
5 Days of War - named 5 Days of August in Georgia – is a movie about that August; there are words that the movie was financed mostly by the Georgian government and watching at the result you might believe to them. I had plans to go to Georgia that August, but then I decided to move the trip a bit later; however, I was there during the shooting of the movie. In fact, the only thing I’ve seen – and partecipated to, although I can’t see myself in the crowd – was the scene of the president talking to people in front of Parliament in the end of that 5-days war.
There was a prime in Tbilisi in early June, 2011; then, I suddently saw a few days ago my friend’s status on Facebook, saying her friend almost cried when she saw 5 Days of August. The movie came back to my mind, although I read and heard not very good things about it, and I decided to finally look for the DVD and to finally buy it.
The movie
I read posts somewhere on the internet of people congratulating the camera crew for the work and I must agree: in the beginning of the movie we’re in Iraq, where the American reporter Thomas Anders (Ruper Friend) is saved by a Georgian contingent after his car has been attacked. The scene is really well done, with camera following soldiers and people and making you feel the fights.
One year later Thomas Andres is going to Georgia, where there are voices about a possible conflict in the separatist zones; when he arrives to Tbilisi, the movie turns into a sort of commercial about Georgia: I don’t personally think this is bad, since in every movie we see an initial scene with wonderful landscapes or skylines of American cities; however, it might seem too much if you see it.
It’s during a wedding party not far from the buffer zone – on the border of South Ossetia – that the fights begins: it’s the night of August 8 and Thomas Rupert is at the restaurant with his cameraman Sebastian Ganz (Richard Coyle); there’s a typical festival for the marriage of one Georgian couple, with (amazing, as in real) dancers that reminded me of the nice country, when an air strike ruin everything: many people at the restaurant gets killed, with huge explosions in real American-style.
With the help of Tatia (the beautiful Emmanuelle Chriqui), a Georgian girl sister of the bride, the reporters move towards Tskhinvali, the capital ot South Ossetia, to document what’s happening. During their trip they film how bad Russian soldiers behave with civilians – a group of Cossacks even execute without any real reason an old woman in front of the whole village; as in every real-American-style movie, they are captured, they are able to hide the memory card with everything they reported, they are going to be tortured to reveal where they hide it and at last they are saved by Georgian soldiers who arrive at the last second. Typical; of course, many other things happen, but it’s all the same stuff, until they are somehow able to send out their report.
Again, everything is shot in a beautiful way, even though explosions and kills look multiplicated by a 1,000,000 factor; many weird things happen: for example, at some point Tatia, just because her father is kinda pro-Ossetian, prefers to leave him with Russian soldiers instead of bringing him with her and the Americans; also, Russian planes are shooting everything that comes in front of them, not caring if a building is full of civilians or not. Now, this might have been really happened, but it still feels quite exaggerated in the movie.
Crowd gathered in front of Parliament during the shooting
The scene I partecipated to is in the end of the movie: the Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili (Andy García) is talking to the people gathered in front of the Parliament, where some members of EU arrived to support the end of the ostilities; I think Andy García did a great job, since knowing a bit about Saakashvili I really imagine him saying exactly the same things in the same way. Just between the end of the movie and the begin of credits, you might see some Georgian people showing photos of their loved ones who were killed during the war.
That’s all: a poor story, nice views of a beautiful country, bad Russians, outstanding explosions and a good filming.
If you’ve never been to Georgia, you might like the movie because of camera crew’s good job; however, you won’t really get that much from the movie itself. But if you’ve been to Georgia and – as most of the people who did – you fell in love with that tiny country in the middle of the World, you’d feel strange to think that all those happened just 3 years ago in places you’ve visited maybe even more than once; and where you’ve probably felt safer than the city you live in.
