Our Own

The spirit sags with the news of another WWII drama, but Meskhiev’s absorbing drama is so well executed, carefully written (by Valentin Chernych) and nicely directed, it breathes new bloody life into the genre. The film follows three Russian escapees from the German occupiers’ clutches holed up in the barn of the ex-Kulak, now ‘headman’ father of one. The way Meskhiev unfolds the complex drama of fear and bravery, comradeship, loyalty, lust and betrayal, secrets and lies reminds one of the triple-cross mechanics of a film noir or the rueful insights of a Clouzot movie, employing effectively a bleached and drained colour palette to express muddy bestial realities. The title and the fact that the other two of the trio is a ‘Chekist’ commander and a Jew show Meskhiev and Chernych have more than a little interest in the fateful historical interaction of social forces within their long-divided country.