Movie : 5 Days of War

Also known as 5 days of August, this american movie is about the last (2008) Russian-Georgian conflict.

It just came out here in Georgia in cinemas, but the american/english version has been out since 2010, so we watched it at home. Although we were warned it was a 'true' american movie, we were still interested in it. Turned out I (and I think I'm not the only one) didn't like it at all.

In the end, the movie is not the story of the conflict or even the story of the people of Georgia : we are following one american journalist (alcoholic, but not enough to be sick all the time) through his search for 'truth' (one of the founding value of the puritans) among the raging war. Of course the love of his life is dead, but of course he will find another.

You can see here all the 'stereotypes' of the big production movie : explosions, fake accents, american heroes far from home, more explosions, 0 georgian actors, ...

I also felt disappointed by one vision that appears very clearly : things haven't changed since the Berlin Wall's fall. We are somehow under the impression that it is Russian (bad) versus americans (good - and because of course everybody speaks english in Georgia - which if you've been living here know it is not true - just like in France ^^) whereas the Russian-Georgian conflict is much much more complex. It is as Europe never existed.

In short, I guess this movie is made for american 'easy' audiences firstly : Bush is not recognised as the hero (he doesn't help) but it is the simple american citizen that is part of the conflict as much as local people that helps carrying the idea of the american supremacy.

Maybe the movie maker (who I forgot the name of, sorry) wanted to do something really truthful about the consequences of this conflict, but my guess is in the end the producers decided something else. I've never been able to understand why they need to transform everything serious into a (poor) movie (ok. I know it's to make money). 

When you've been living in Georgia for several month, you get to understand that it actually got a lot of consequences, moreover that the situation is still unstable.

Nevertheless, they managed to show the hospitality of the georgian people, which is the main thing. There is another remarkable point also : that they got authorisation to film the president's house. 'Cause we can't. :D

Marie (getting myself in trouble! ;-) )