9th Company

1988, the final months of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. A group of young Siberians is conscripted, put through brutal training and sent to Afghanistan. The last stretch of the film is the defence of a position on a hill. It is not interested in the meaning of the war. It is interested in being forgotten: the company stays on the hill with no knowledge of the withdrawal ordered behind them. All the pain of the film gathers in that failure of communication. The form splits in two: a long, hard training section, then a finale given over entirely to combat. The battle scenes are large in scale and demonstrate the technical ambitions of Russian cinema at the time. It is Fyodor Bondarchuk's first film as director, made at thirty-eight, the same age at which his father Sergei Bondarchuk made his first. It took $7.7 million in Russia in its first five days, a domestic record, and was the top-grossing local film of 2005. The story is loosely adapted from the real battle at Hill 3234 during Operation Magistral in 1988, and veterans of the war pointed out a number of inaccuracies. Who it is for: viewers interested in war films and contemporary Russian cinema. Who it is not for: anyone wanting historical accuracy. The film alters the real event for dramatic effect and barely questions the political frame.