The 3 Rooms Of Melancholia takes viewers deep inside the Chechnyan conflict, looking at the devastation it has wrought on children of both sides. Pirjo Honkasalo paints a mesmerising portrait of war through three poetic chapters. In a Russian military school for young boys life is regimented and bleak as the students are trained to continue to fight Russia’s ethnic conflicts; amongst the rubble of the Chechnyan capital Grozny abandoned children are looked after by a good Samaritan; the final chapter moves to a traumatised orphanage just over the Chechen border. The cumulative impact of the images, together with a haunting score and stunningly beautiful cinematography, make The 3 Rooms Of Melancholia a truly gripping cinematic experience. ‘Evokes the psychic devastation of war with an immediacy that couldn’t be any more unsettling if the film maker had shot all of her footage through the gun barrel of an army tank.’ Jan Stuart, Newsday.
Human Rights Film Network Award & Lina Mangiacapre Award, Venice International Film Festival; Amnesty International doen Award, idfa; Big Stamp Award, ZagrebDox