Review CXXXVIII - Melancholian 3 huonetta

Review 138
The Three Rooms of Melancholia (2004)

I actually watched Pirjo Honkasalo's Melancholian 3 huonetta, or The Three Rooms of Melancholia in English, wow, almost three years ago, I think. I know it was one of the early films my boyfriend and I watched together. I never reviewed it since I remembered thinking it was mediocre and meh, but I recently gave it a re-watch after my friend gave me a fictional book focusing on the second Chechen War called A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra (I can't really say much about it as I've been going through it really slowly and am now close to finishing, but I guess that can give you an idea of how I feel about it). So let's check out this Finnish documentary, shall we?

I suppose I can give a little context to the situation since I'm assuming quite a few of you may never have even heard of Chechnya. I'm also going to note that I'm going with a simplified version that I got from reading from some sources, not from any Russian or Chechen individuals. So if you're Russian or Chechen and ready to point fingers on my inaccurate description, my apologies - I'm always ready for corrections.

The Soviet Union was finally destroyed in 1991 when previous Soviet republics, like Estonia and Kyrgyzstan, finally gained independence (little shout out to Lithuania for getting out in 1990 - and check out Underground from Antanas Šileika for a nice read on the rebellion during the Soviet Union's occupation. My grandfather, who was born in Lithuania, enjoys telling me that sixty percent of the book is accurate). While everyone was celebrating, Chechnya waited patiently to gain independence, but Russia denied them. The reason? The country had never been recognised as an independent state within the Soviet Union unlike like Latvia, for example. Russia also feared that other now Russian states would want to leave if Chechnya was granted permission, so they were told they had to stay. Well, Chechnya was not about to let this go without a fight, leading to the First Chechen War from 1994 until 1996 where they received temporary independence from Russia. However, given the complete economic and structural ruin of the country, Russia still provided some type of aid. I'm fuzzy on the details here, so I'd rather just skip to the Second Chechen War, which started in about 1999/2000 until 2009. The Islamic International Brigade attempted to invade another Russia republic, which in turn, led to a military attack from Russia which pushed into Chechnya. War waged, but given the state Chechnya was in, ultimately, Chechnya faced defeat and are currently occupied by Russia. ... I feel like my explanation was really poor, but I think knowing that the film takes place during the Chechnya war and the republic wanted to seek independence provides enough context.

The documentary focuses on children from Russia and Chechnya in three chapters - Longing, Breathing, and Remembering. Chapter one looks on the Russian side, the second, about a woman, Hadizhat Gataeva, who seeks lost children in Chechnya in order to care for them at an orphanage, and chapter three peeks into the life of the children at the orphanage run by Hadizhat Gataeva. The first and last chapter are in colour, whereas the middle one is in black and white.

Honestly, Three Rooms really does hit hard. I'd say I felt it harder this time around than the first time I saw it. Nonetheless, I can't say the documentary was extraordinary. I found the introductions of most of the children, especially in chapter one, was kind of fast and not personal. I felt like it wanted to focus on all the children, then focused on a few, then didn't focus on any by filming all the children. It was very impersonal, even though I still shook my head when one of the boys begs his mom to come and get him so he could leave for winter vacation. The second chapter was probably the most effective for me as you met Hadizhat Gataeva and then followed her through her job for the duration of the chapter. The third chapter again lost this sense of person, but to a lesser extent. There were less children, so it was hard to lose focus, but I still thought the little introduction of the girl nearing the middle/end of the chapter was kind of delayed. I think instead it should have been made up front and then we could have focused on the three children introduced. It just seemed weird getting this connection with two of the boys and then it's like, "Yeah, here's this girl, by the way." Instead, I think it would have been more effective to just discuss all of them because the girl had an awful story, and just kind of showing her because she happened to be at the prayer meeting and then telling her story seemed off-beat and weird.

As for aesthetics, it was fine. I personally didn't see anything crazy in the film that I really loved, but then again, both times I watched it, the quality was pretty awful, but camera angles never did anything super interesting.

I wanted to make this review mostly because I think it's a documentary you may not have heard of, but provides something new. It really is depressing and I appreciate that the director chose to show both the Russian and Chechen sides instead of just one because war does meet consequences on both sides. My beef is the character introductions seem sporadic and so I lost a lot of personal connections with them. I think better editing and maybe some increased monologue could have helped. Maybe?

The Three Rooms of Melancholia is not stupendous documentary making, but it is different since I had never heard of the Chechen wars prior to this film. It might not be great, but I'd still give it a watch anyway.

Full film available on youtube with English and Italian subtitles hard-coded in.