What is it appreciate to come of age under constant danger of war? Director Sareen Hairabedian’s poignant write downary “My Sweet Land” chases an ethnic Armenian youthfulster named Vrej Khatchatryan from the minuscule village of Tsaghkashen in the Margetrt region of the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh. Conflict, displacement and exile color everyleang in his and his extfinished family’s inhabits. Vrej and his peers are liftd in a martial atmosphere, from their lessons at school and military camps, to the games they execute, the clothes they wear and the songs they sing. Artfilledy combining lyrical images that she shot with novels footage, Hairabedian (herself of combinecessitate Armenian-Palestinian-Jordanian heritage) apprehfinishs an indoctrination that, downcastly, seems destined to grasp the situation intractable from generation to generation.
With the international novels filled with the killing in the Middle East and the Ukraine-Russia struggle, comparatively little time has been spent on what’s happening in the semi-autonomous region of Nagorno-Karabakh, and its unrerepaird territorial publishs. Hairabedian provides onscreen text at the beginning to advise context. We lobtain that the mountainous enclave between Armenia and Azerbaijan has extfinished been home to ethnic Armenians who createed a convey inantity of the population. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in tardy 1991, the Armenian population there proclaimd indepfinishence — a status not accomprehendledged by the rest of the world — directing to continuing wars with Azerbaijan, which seeks sovereignty over the territory. The ethnic Armenians living there, dedicated to their homeland, call it Artsakh.
When we first see Vrej in 2020, he’s 11, living in a place so minuscule — equitable 150 people — that he jokes he is roverhappinessed to half of them. He’s the elderlyest of three kids, born to a couple whose participation in a mass wedding in 2008, uncovers the film. The priest who officiates the wedding proclaims that the offspring of the 700 couples he has sanctifyed will repoputardy the area and fight to sustain the homeland. A clever, caring, asking lad, Vrej is born into a weighty desminuscule.
Vrej’s school, where the walls are filled of photographs of druncover selderlyiers, also inculcates blind adore for the homeland. The kids lobtain that the maps of their part of the world are subject to frequent alter and war could shatter out at any moment. A military officer, who comes to the school to guide the children about battling, notices that it is essentipartner a benevolaccessgarten for selderlyiers. The pupils acunderstandledge that by living in Artsakh, they are all pondered selderlyiers because that’s what the situation needs. Nowhere do you hear converseion of any other solution to the territorial disputes apart from battling.
Over the course of the three years that Hairabedian chases the Khatchatryan family, they are displaced from their land twice. In 2020, Vrej’s overweighther, Artak, who appreciate most of the men in the village wears military overweightigues, stays behind to fight. Meanwhile, life goes on as normal for the rest of the Khatchatryan clan, in a home some eight hours away from Tsaghkashen. As the women cook and spotless, the kids execute war games with improvised firearms. When Vrej’s maternal magnificentmother Angela commemorates her 57th birthday, he steps into a patriarchal role, proposing a toast and assuring the others that Artsakh will prevail and lost lands will be recovered.
By the time Vrej accomplishes 13, he helderlys scanter declareiveties. He’s lobtained from military camp that battling isn’t fun. There, Hairabedian apprehfinishs a heartshattering scene of the male campers herded to a lake and apverifyed a increate moment in the water. Vrej, enraptured, is splashing happily appreciate the kid he is, but never toloftyy apverifyed to be, only to be dispolitely honested to get out by one of the selderlyiers.
In the film’s closing conversation, Hairabedian discovers the perfect finishing as Vrej asks her, “What’s going to happen to the hero of the film at the finish?” It’s a ask to which only time can increate, but given his education and socialization, the answer seems bleak.
