http://www.spiritualityhealth.com/ne...item_8351.html
and here:
http://www.offoffoff.com/film/2004/vodkalemon.php
Has anyone seen this film? Has it made much noise in Yerevan?
Today I saw this film, here, in Gainesville (US). Very pleasantly surprised that the movie was being played at our progressive theatre. Where I live you won't find many Armenians, honestly, i haven't met even one so far, so i know that the movie had made it this far due to its merits. The fact that i was seeing it, listening to the Armenian speech, Aramo's face popping up on the screen for a minute or two made such a grand impression on me!
And of course, the movie itself is magnificent, more in its imagery and honesty than anything else. I read some of the comments, great many people find the movie surreal.
However, what shocked me was the REALISM of the movie. I am from Armenia, and those people, the squalor, the poverty is well familiar to me. I've been there, gone through it, although not from a village, I do know what life there is like. These people are real, the life of the movie IS the real life. It was a very powerful film. i watched it here, in the US, and i know i cannot judge it objectively since i am more of an "insider" and can almost feel it on my skin, and yet all through the movie i tried to put myself in a place of an outsider, the rest of the audience who were unfamiliar with the settings, the political and economic events that took place in Armenia after the collapse of the Soviet Union. I tried to imagine what they thought, felt... whether they really "got" the irony of the whole situation... along with the gutter, hopeless, desperate poverty there are US dollars...along with the traditions that go back for centuries there is sin, moral degradation... So close to tears the reality, the hopelessness of the condition of these people, of real people who despite everything still carry on, cluthing desperately to their existence. i want to thank the director and the entire cast of the movie for making this beautiful, powerful, tragic and disturbing film.
Vodka Lemon
