Pavel Lungin’s Russian Film ‘Leaving Afghanistan’ (2019): The Harrowing Last days of the Soviets
Afghanistan is currently in focus now that US troops are on the process of withdrawal from there, ending the 18-year war. Pavel Lungin’s Russian film Leaving Afghanistan (2019) is a timely look at the way the Soviets freed itself from the Afghan quagmire in 1989. Lungin won the Best Director award at Cannes for his path breaking film, Taxi Blues (1990). Pyotr Mamonov, the Russian rock musician and songwriter, played the lead role in this film. Lungin is known for two more films which too had Mamonov as the lead: The Island (2006) was perhaps indicative of the resurgent religiosity in Russia. Tsar (2009) was Lungin’s version of Ivan the terrible.
Synopsis
Lungin’s recent film, Leaving Afghanistan, is based on the memoirs of Afghan war veteran Nikolai Kovalyov who rose to become the FSB spy chief. It is about the delay in departure of a Red Army Division as the Mujahideen held the pilot son of General Vasiliev captive. Yet another hurdle was that the Mujahideen controlled the Salang pass through which the Soviet vehicles had to leave. Is it possible to strike a deal with the engineer Hochem, the chief of Mujahedeen for rescuing the General’s son and ensuring safe passage of the troops?
Reaction in Russia
Leaving Afghanistan is an honest attempt at depicting the senselessness of war in general and how the troops went about during the last days in particular. The Soviet parliament itself declared the Afghan war as a “political mistake” in 1989. However, the present Russian government has sought to reverse that condemnation. Hence there is no wonder that the film has been attacked by Russian politicians and former servicemen. One of them has called the film unpatriotic for showing Red Army soldiers looting and fighting among themselves.
Landmark films on war
As much as Lungin must be lauded for his courage in revisiting the Afghan war that resulted in the killing of more than a million Afghan civilians and about 15000 Soviet troops, he has to compete with the best films on war his compatriots have made: Mikhail Kalatozov’s The Cranes are Flying (1957), Andrei Tarkovsky’s Ivan’s Childhood (1962), Elem Klimov’s Come and See (1985) and Aleksey German’s Trial on the Road (1987). Lungin’s Leaving Afghanistan may not stand upto these landmark films as his approach is different.
**Article contains spoilers**
Documentary like form
Lungin is supposed to have faithfully followed Nikolai Kovalyov’s memoirs and recreated the true events. Although the film couldn’t be shot in actual location in Afghanistan, he has used the mountainous terrain in neighboring countries. He has used the form of documenting facts that gives the feeling of the action unfolding in front of us. The hand-held camera captures the action in all its immediacy. A caravan carrying heroin has been robbed by a soldier. He buys a Panasonic cassette player with that money. A soldier from the mountain regiment forcibly takes it away from him resulting in a fight. A Red Army Major cheats some Afghan fighters by promising to supply them missile launchers. With the money collected from them he tries to buy a Sony Black Trinitron TV. The Soviets have been shown in good light too. When the Mujahideen chief Hochem makes a demand to have two men as hostages so that the leaving Red Army does not bomb his region, a KGB colonel offers to volunteer. An officer doesn’t let him do so and he goes instead along with yet another soldier willing to join him.
How Does Leaving Afghanistan fare
Later it turns out how risky it is for the two volunteers as General Vasiliev has the region bombed, breaking the promise given to the Mujahideen for avenging the killing of the General’s son by a young boy. Innocent civilians are killed due to the bombing. While the film depicts the events truthfully, it doesn’t go beyond a certain level. The film’s documentary like form is perhaps the cause for it. Television news channels have brought war to the comfort of our living rooms. We can watch wars live as they are fought in any corner of the world. It has made us somewhat insensitive to the cruelty of war and we even doubt the genuineness of reporting as we have come to know the bias of news channels. Perhaps the film should have gone beyond narrating the true-life story of how the Soviets left Afghanistan. The Afghan war was supposed to have led to the disintegration of the USSR. A closing line in the film echoes this but it does not emerge from the film’s proceedings. That would be another film in a different form.
