The 3 Rooms of Melancholia

The documentary tells the war in Chechnya by looking at it from three separate places. In the first part there is a military school attached to the Russian army where boys are raised; in the second a town torn apart by the war; in the third a refugee camp where children are living. All three places are tied to one another through the same rift the war has opened in the lives of children. The film neither takes a side nor offers explanations; it holds its gaze on the children’s faces and leaves the reading to the viewer. The weight of the account lies not in words but in silence and in shots held for a long time. The passages between the three parts set up a comparison in place of a commentary. Pirjo Honkasalo’s hundred and six minute documentary was completed in 2004.