2014 film
The Search
is a 2014 French
drama film
written and directed by
Michel Hazanavicius
and produced by Hazanavicius and
Thomas Langmann
. The film was inspired by the Oscar-winning post-Holocaust drama also called
The Search
,
[4]
directed by
Fred Zinnemann
, in which a compassionate westerner helps a lost child find what is left of his family amidst the chaotic flood of post-war civilian refugees. In the 1948 film, the backdrop is post-war Berlin;
The Search
(2014) takes place in the "front lines of the Russian invasion of Chechnya"
[5]
during the first year of the
Second Chechen War
(1999-2009).
[6]
[7]
The Search
was selected to compete for the
Palme d'Or
in the main competition section at the
2014 Cannes Film Festival
.
[8]
Plot
[
edit
]
The film begins and ends on 16 October 1999,
[9]
with 20-year-old Kolia, (Maksim Emelyanov), a
Russian Army
recruit, recording and narrating with a handheld video camera, as young, drunken Russian soldiers taunt, terrorize, and finally execute a civilian
Chechen
couple in front of their teenage daughter Raissa (Zukhra Duishvili).
[10]
Kolia's story is one of four personal narratives that unfold against the backdrop of the ruins of a village in Chechnya, the flood of civilian refugees from the village, and a family partially reunited. Kolia, a pot-smoking guitar player in
Perm
, 2,300 kilometers from the Chechen border, is taken into custody for possession of drugs and drafted into army service. As a new recruit, he undergoes a brutal transformation from an innocent youth into a "dehumanized killing machine."
[5]
When Kolia's fellow soldiers kill the Chechen couple, the couple's nine-year-old son, Hadji (Abdul Khalim Mamutsiev) hides and watches and when it is safe, he is able to carry his infant brother to relative safety. The trauma of his parents' death renders him mute. He is helped along the way to the refugee camp by other
Chechen refugees
and eventually, he is befriended by Carole (
Berenice Bejo
), a French-born, Chechnya-based NGO worker. Carole, who works as a researcher and representative of the Human Rights Committee of the
European Union
, helps Hadji regain his ability to speak. Hadji's elder sister Raissa searches for both brothers. Carol interviews Helen (
Annette Bening
), a
Red Cross
worker, and places hope in the
International response to the Second Chechen War
to help the centuries-old struggle of the Chechen people.
[11]
Raissa, reunited with her baby brother, escapes once again from the village with the help of other Chechen refugees. She has to leave without Hadji, against her will, because of the Russian military forces'
aerial bombing
.
[12]
Raissa helps Helen at the International Red Cross orphanage. Both Helen and Carole are discouraged when the
United Nations Commission of Human Rights
report of April 2000 does not declare the situation in Chechnya a humanitarian disaster.
[13]
[14]
[15]
[16]
[17]
Carole delivers her report to the United Nations but soon realizes that not many of the participants are listening. With the help of Carole and Helen,
[10]
Hadji is reunited with his siblings. The film ends at the beginning, with Kolia's filming of the attack on Hadji's family.
Cast
[
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]
- Berenice Bejo
as Carole
- Annette Bening
as Helen
- Maksim Emelyanov as Kolia
- Abdul Khalim Mamutsiev as Hadji
- Zukhra Duishvili as Raissa
- Lela Bagakashvili as Elina
- Yuriy Tsurilo as The Colonel
- Anton Dolgov as Soldier
- Mamuka Matchitidze as Father
- Rusudan Pareulidze as Mother
Locations
[
edit
]
Much of the filming took place alongside the
Caucasus Mountains
in Georgia, depicting places like a village near
Grozny
, NGO offices in the city of
Nazran
in nearby
Ingushetia
, a
federal subject
of Russia that borders Chechnya, the city of Perm, Russia.
[18]
[19]
Film critic
Justin Chang
praised the work of set designer, Emile Ghigo, who used buildings, places, and geographical features in the "mountainous, battle-scarred landscape" of Georgia that were similar to those in Chechnya including buildings destroyed by bombs, army barracks and refugee camps.
[5]
McCarthy also cited Ghigo's contribution with his "well-chosen locations, the crowded city scenes, detention centers and army barracks reek with the feel, sounds and discomfort of humanity pressed into unnaturally tight quarters."
[20]
Cinematography
[
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]
Critics praised the work of
Guillaume Schiffman
,
[5]
[20]
the
French
cinematographer
, who also worked with director Michel Hazanavicius on films such as
The Artist
.
[21]
McCarthy described how they used "muted but still sharply defined colors, as well as with what appear to be mostly handheld cameras, to achieve a somber yet vitally immediate look."
[20]
Reception
[
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]
On film
review aggregator
Rotten Tomatoes
, critics gave
The Search
a rating of 21%, based on 19 reviews, with a
weighted average
score of 4.71/10.
[22]
On
Metacritic
, the film has a score of 37 out of 100, based on 8 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews".
[23]
The Guardian
journalist
Peter Bradshaw
argued that Hazanavicius' attempt at "Old Hollywood big-hearted sincerity" devolved from an earnest rejection of violence against all actors in a war, into naive sentimentality.
[10]
Bradshaw did commend Hazanavicius for reminding the west and the European Union of their lack of concern and inaction when
Boris Yeltsin
attacked Chechenya.
[10]
Chang also praised all the actors for turning "in fine work within fairly circumscribed parameters;" he described the production as "first-rate" and the sound work as excellent. However, he called the film a "grueling, lumbering, two-and-a-half-hour humanitarian tract that all but collapses under the weight of its own moral indignation" with an approach that was "ultimately hectoring" and "didactic."
[5]
The Globe and Mail
critic Liam Lacey described the film as "long, unoriginal and heavy-handed", a direct opposite of Hazanavicius' Oscar-winning silent movie comedy,
The Artist
.
[24]
Critic Todd McCarthy observed that the Chechen faction to which the Russians were responding ? referred to as rebels, terrorists or invaders elsewhere ? are conspicuously absent from the film's mosaic. McCarthy remarked that, "it might have behooved [the film maker] to have everyday Chechens as well as the foreigners reference them, positively or negatively, to at least make them a presence and a factor in the tragedy."
[20]
Other uses
[
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]
In 2015, a fictional sequence taken from the film was presented as a real video of a massacre taken by a Russian soldier during the 1999 Chechnya war. In 2022, the same fictional sequence was posted on social networks, this time supposedly as an example of a massacre committed by Ukrainian soldiers during the Chechen war (even though - paradoxically - the Ukrainian army never fought in Chechnya).
[25]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"The Search"
.
Cannes
. Retrieved
15 May
2014
.
- ^
"The Search"
.
TIFF
. Archived from
the original
on 22 August 2014
. Retrieved
21 October
2014
.
- ^
"The Search (2014)"
.
JPBox-Office
. Retrieved
12 June
2016
.
- ^
Bosley Crowther (24 March 1948).
"Film Review The Search (1948)"
.
The New York Times
. Retrieved
25 August
2015
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Justin Chang (21 May 2014).
"Cannes Film Review: 'The Search'
"
.
Variety
. Retrieved
25 August
2015
.
- ^
"Filming locations for The Search (1948)"
.
IMDB
.
- ^
"
"The Search" : Michel Hazanavicius entame le tournage du successeur de "The Artist"
"
.
allocine
. Retrieved
12 April
2014
.
- ^
"2014 Official Selection: The Search Synopsis"
.
Cannes
. 2014
. Retrieved
17 April
2014
.
- ^
"Europe: Russians 'within sight' of Grozny"
.
BBC News
. 16 October 1999
. Retrieved
25 August
2015
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
Peter Bradshaw (21 May 2014).
"Cannes 2014 review: The Search - silence may be best policy on followup to The Artist"
.
The Guardian
. UK
. Retrieved
25 August
2015
.
- ^
World: Europe UN envoy meets Chechen refugees
,
BBC News
, 18 November 1999
- ^
Russian Federation/Chechnya: Human Rights Concerns for the 61st Session of the U.N. Commission on Human Rights
, Human Rights Watch, 2005
- ^
"Commission on Human Rights Report on the Fifty-sixth Session (20 March - 28 April 2000)"
(PDF)
. United Nations Commission on Human Rights. 28 April 2000. p. 578
. Retrieved
25 August
2015
.
- ^
U.S. Response to Human Rights Commission Resolution on Chechnya (Statement issued by Harold Hongju Koh and Nancy Rubin in Geneva)
Archived
6 September 2013 at the
Wayback Machine
, U.S. Department of State, 26 April 2000
- ^
'Russia will pay for Chechnya'
, BBC News, 7 December 1999
- ^
UK condemns Chechnya ultimatum
, BBC News, 7 December 1999
- ^
"Bush condemns US isolationism"
.
BBC
. 18 November 1999
. Retrieved
12 September
2013
.
- ^
Gilligan, Emma (2010).
Terror in Chechnya: Russia and the tragedy of civilians in war
. Princeton University Press. p. 155.
ISBN
978-0-691-13079-8
.
- ^
Information on the Chechen refugee situation in Ingushetia in the late 2000
Archived
2 November 2007 at the
Wayback Machine
,
University of California
, 10 September 2000
- ^
a
b
c
d
Todd McCarthy (21 May 2014).
"
'The Search': Cannes Review"
.
The Hollywood Reporter
. Retrieved
25 August
2015
.
- ^
Cruz, Gilbert (19 January 2011).
"What Is This Artist Movie That's Winning All the Awards?"
.
Time Magazine
. Retrieved
12 February
2012
.
- ^
"The Search (2015)"
.
Rotten Tomatoes
.
Fandango
. Retrieved
29 November
2019
.
- ^
"The Search Reviews"
.
Metacritic
.
CBS Interactive
. Retrieved
29 November
2019
.
- ^
Liam Lacey (13 March 2015).
"The Search: Hazanavicius depicts war drama via multiple lives"
.
The Globe and Mail
. Retrieved
25 August
2015
.
- ^
Alexandre Capron, Les observateurs (15 March 2022).
"Des images d'un soldat ukrainien executant un Tchetchene ? Non, une sequence d'un film francais"
.
France24
.fr
(in French)
. Retrieved
15 March
2022
.
External links
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Second Chechen War
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Major attacks
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