Herocracy

When the republic of Georgia declared war on the rebellious province of Abkhazia, many of the country's young artists and intellectuals responded to their government's call to fight. Every culture, it seems, needs to discover for itself that war is hell. Khaindrava's version of this aperçu is in every sense a front-line bulletin: it's a black-and-white docudrama about Georgia's attempts to subdue the rebellion in Abkhazia, made with real young soldiers and partly shot in the thick of battle. It starts with the eagerness of students and intellectuals to volunteer for the Georgian army and ends with the deaths of many. Khaindrava, several times imprisoned for dissidence in USSR days, knows all about the conflict: he helped launch it when he was made Minister for Abkhazian Affairs - a post he soon quit. He should have watched Hell Is for Heroes before he took the job.