Dolin about the understanding of wars in the cinema

Film critic Anton Dolin in an interview with Novaya Gazeta. Europe":

“During the processes with the help of cinema is a very useful thing. In Hollywood, this happens constantly. Another thing is that it cannot be said that it will also be with us. For example, it seems to me that our post -Soviet cinema has very little and poorly comprehend the war in Afghanistan. There were very few films that seriously in the injuries of these events would have plunged. Relatively speaking, one book by Svetlana Aleksievich “Zinc Boys” made much more comprehension for this than those few (mainly genre) films that were shot about this.

<...> There were several very important films about the Chechen war. The "Caucasian captive" of Sergey Bodrov Sr. is a staging, epoch-making, very important film. Of course, Alexander Rogozhkin’s “checkpoint” is very significant. Well, and the "war" of Alexei Balabanov. At least these three films watched massively, discussed a lot. There were, of course, others, of course. I can’t say that the Russian latest cinema completely passed by the Chechen war. But, of course, they were not filmed and talked about it. There was not enough reflection in this. Judging because no lessons of this war were perceived by society in a broad sense. Now we are cherished by a large ladle.

The second world, it is the Great Patriotic War, possessed its mythology. It was a 100 % positive mythology. With all sacrifice, with all injuries. It was about the heroism of the Soviet people. It was about self -sacrifice. It was said that the Russians (or Soviet), who lost 20 million people, made the largest sacrifice so that the grandiose evil was defeated - fascism. From this myth, to a large extent, those completely human -naval concepts were born that led to the current situation with Ukraine. Unfortunately, we must recognize it now. There was a lot of this movie, he had a giant request for him. There were humanistic, piercing, wonderful films. Inside this there were some censorship prohibitions, but there were not an infinitely many of them. Because such radical films as, for example, “ascent”, or “go and look”, or “Ivanovo childhood”, could still appear, be released and be seen by a large number of people. Although the "road check" was put on the shelf.

Afghan war or Chechen war is a shameful wars. There is nothing to be proud of, there is no positive image of a Russian soldier. And this image is very difficult to artificially create, to form. Therefore, there can be no comparison here. ”