3 Rooms of Melancholia
A searing examination of the unrelenting Chechen conflict
Prijo Honkasalo's elegiac documentary depicting the lives of children victimized by the Chechen conflict achieves its power largely through images. Composed of three nearly wordless chapters, "The 3 Rooms of Melancholia" superbly conveys its themes of despair and lost opportunities. The beautifully photographed film, an award winner at numerous festivals, is receiving its U.S. theatrical premiere at New York's Film Forum.
The first section, "Longing," deals with the Kronstadt Cadet Academy, a military school near St. Petersburg populated by about 600 students, some as young as 9 years old. The second section, "Breathing," is an impressionistic portrait of Grozny, the Chechen capital, a city reduced to rubble and ruin by the endless fighting. The climactic section, "Remembering," presents portrait of various children in orphanages and refugee camps, including a young woman who was raped by Russian soldiers at the age of 12 and a boy who was found living in a cardboard box.
Featuring a haunting musical score by Sanna Solmenkallio, the film concentrates heavily on lingering close-ups of the suffering children's faces, as well as numerous lengthy shots of the stark landscapes. Although these images have an undeniably unsettling power, they do tend to lose impact with repetition, and the film would gain power with some judicious cutting. Nonetheless, it is a pertinent reminder of the timeless horrors of war. (F. Scheck, Hollywood Reporter)
3 Rooms of Melancholia
Sun October 29, 2006, 7:00 & 9:15, The Film Studies Theater in ATLAS 102
Finland, 2004, in Russian, Black and White, 106 min
Tickets
10 films for $60 with punch card
$9 general admission.
$7 w/UCB student ID,
$7 for senior citizens
$1 discount to anyone with a bike helmet
Free on your birthday! CU Cinema Studies students get in free.
Parking
Pay lot 360 (now only $1/hour!), across from the buffalo statue and next to the
Duane Physics tower, is closest to Muenzinger. Free parking can be found after 5pm at the meters
along Colorado Ave east of Folsom stadium and along University Ave west of Macky.
RTD Bus
Park elsewhere and catch the HOP to campus
International Film Series
(Originally called The University Film Commission)
Established 1941 by James Sandoe.
First Person Cinema
(Originally called The Experimental Cinema Group)
Established 1955 by Carla Selby, Gladney Oakley, Bruce Conner and Stan Brakhage.
C.U. Film Program
(AKA The Rocky Mountain Film Center)
First offered degrees in filmmaking and critical studies in 1989 under the guidance of Virgil
Grillo.
Celebrating Stan
Created by Suranjan Ganguly in 2003.
C.U. Department of Cinema Studies & Moving Image Arts
Established 2017 by Chair Ernesto Acevedo-Muñoz.