The negatives and interpositives of Mariya Saakyan’s feature debut, The Lighthouse (Mayak / Маяк 2006), have been lost, so the version available is scanned from a theatrical print; it’s low resolution and, at times, grainy. Written by Givi Shavgulidze, the film opens on Lena (Anna Kapaleva) arriving home from Moscow to an Armenian village, only to find that war with Azerbaijan has arrived with her.
The plot of this sepia-toned film (cinematography by Maxim Drozdov) follows Lena’s efforts to get out despite a distinct lack of civilian trains. In between attempts, we get to experience village life alongside her, and catch a few glimpses of the old, young, and others not worth being conscripted still living there. Notwithstanding the amount of time we spend with them, we don’t really get a sense of individual character. And Lena herself is a cipher.
This turns the war, learned about from the radio and heard from afar but seldom seen, into a symbol for all the demographic pressures working against rural life. People die and aren’t replaced. Resources are depleted and not replenished. When an old woman breaks her windows to throw off potential burglars, we not only sympathize with her fear, we acutely feel the waste and wonder if the glass can be replaced.
Powering this mood piece is a score (by Kimmo Pohjonen) featuring Armenian elements, and which can sound truly harrowing during the dicier moments of the film.
Watching in Taiwan, with the family-rending trauma of the hurried retreat from Mainland China at the end of the civil war with the Communists as part of our history, I kept waiting for such a darkly ironic twist when the villagers finally manage to leave. But the film, surprisingly, finds an optimistic way out, suggesting that as long as the people survive, the village will, too. And yet, the final historical montage of actual people being crushed in crowds fighting to get on trains reminds us that the people are not guaranteed survival.
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