Green Elephant

This film is about the relationship between army officers in the closed world of a military unit. Two junior officers are locked in one military prison cell, and they have to solve social and psychological problems in this isolated world. Realistic dialogues and scenery contrast with the preposterous behaviour and brutal motives of the two characters. At the same time, they show how much their characters resemble those of Italian commedia dell’arte. Due to its shocking images and obscene language, Green Elephant could never have been presented within the official Russian film circuit. The ideological and politically figurative sense of the film is even more controversial. This is a very cruel and open model of a male world that is based on militarism and force – a very idiosyncratic artistic protest against the war ‘while we are drinking our tea and think that we have wonderful life.’ Green Elephant is even more urgent because of the escalation of the war in Chechnya and growing criminality in the Russian army. (AP)