Russia, 1998, 85mins, Russian with English subtitles
Wri./Dir. Alexander Rogozhkin
A mild Russian war-film about a platoon of soldiers occupying Chechyna, unusual for its absence of conflict. Banished to a valley where nothing happens, the Russians await judgement for a botched raid in which a local boy and his mother were killed. Their lives are defined by the tension of waiting for something to happen. They pass time playing cat and mouse with the sniper in the woods, bargaining with a local girl who pimps her deaf-mute sister in return for AK-47 cartridges. These men have no money, they exchange grenades for vodka and marijuana, set up booby traps to kill sheep, gamble with money they don't have. But they are loyal to each other, and keen not to antagonise the local rebel militia - with whom they have an agreement to leave each other alone. The stand-off seems to go on forever. The film is light however, the men joke and carouse constantly, the film ensures they are real people and not stereotypes or heroes. The hardships of their life are evident, but they are not angst-ridden like the marines in Vietnam war movies, there is no hatred amongst the ranks, just resignation to a day-by-day surviving, as opposed to living. The absurdity of their duty is that the are guarding a road which only goes to the cemetery. Futility is all around them. They are shot at all day, their only orders are to stay put and wait for more orders - whilst the food goes mouldy, the locals come and go at will, and there is nothing to do except count the days.
The film is unconventional as it portrays war as endless waiting and sitting around (is this what Sam Fuller meant when he said cinema is like warfar?). Checkpoint is antiwar but not really pacifist. It depicts the conflict as a sequence of arbitrary daily events tinged with humour and humanity. One of the soldiers narrates the film, and his voiceover counting the days is reminiscent of a Wong Kar Wai film - where time is always too slow for the characters, events come out of nowhere and life is a struggle against boredom. The checkpoint, like the war, is being held simply to keep up appearances. There is no rationale for the war or their duty, the soldiers become resigned to their daily routines - playing pranks and games, daring each other to do guard duty naked. They grow roses, tend the grave of their pet rat and boil cartridges to trade for sex - anything to break the tedium.
It is from this tedium that the film's narrative tension is formed. Subtly questioning the Russian's acceptance of the status quo, of orders and of fate, Checkpoint is a codnemnation of the corrupt impersonal system which sustains this conflict, which punishes initiative and rewards loyalty with betrayal. The Russian characters are doomed by their impotence and apathy - they let routine and regulations take over instead of questioning what they are there for and resisting. Although they sense the ominous approaching, they are unable to see the bigger picture and unable to break the cycle created in part by their leaders, in part by their inertia.
It is interesting that the characters are not unique, like real soldiers they are hard to distinguish from each other despite their corny nicknames. It is only towards the end of the film that we get a sense of who each of them are. We see every aspect of their lives - bathing, eating, shitting, digging, cooking, joshing, waiting. The film is not about the war but these boys stuck in their peaceful, misty valley where the only things that happen, happen because they are still there. Each day they linger, the more likely it becomes that something bad will transpire - an inevitable confrontation, which closes the movie on a sour, bleak note of despair.
The film's denouement implodes like a vacuum. Any sense of well-being that the film had imparted up to that point palpably drained from the theatre in three short seconds. It is this clincher that makes Checkpoint a disconcerting and powerful statement. Its structure is like a fragile hollow sphere on which each scene is carefully painted, only to be crushed mindlessly on completion. The film strips war of its meaning just as war strips life of its meaning.
eugene chew
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return to 1999 Sydney Film Festival index