25/03/2024 - Alexis Pazoumian’s documentary tells the poignant story of a life in the throes of war

Two young boys run across a mountainous landscape as snow thaws on the rolling hills. They chase one another playfully before releasing a shout into the air. This carefully framed scene, set in the Nagorno-Karabakh village of Talish, opens Alexis Pazoumian’s The Black Garden [+see also:
trailer
film profile]. The feature-length documentary directed by the French-Armenian photographer and director celebrated its world premiere in the international competition of this year’s CPH:DOX.

The film inserts us into early 2020, when life is seemingly returning to normal in Talish, a village on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, with marks of devastation still bringing to mind Azerbaijani aggression during the Four-Day War in 2016. Those who came back to the village are trying to pick up their lives where they left off. Avo and Samvel relish all the things that ten-year-olds do: climbing atop their bikes and cycling through the streets, or sharing a joke and a chuckle. A young man, Erik, is doing his military service close to the border. His days at the barracks seem calm, and when not preoccupied with combat training, he practises gymnastic stances and talks about returning to university. A lumberjack and war veteran, named Karen, reminisces about the past and how Talish used to be one of the biggest villages in Nagorno-Karabakh. “With all the wars, we’ve had to flee three times,” he says.

“How does daily life express itself in an unresolved time, perpetually on the brink of war?” Pazoumian writes in his notes on The Black Garden, alluding to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Perhaps attempting to find an answer to the self-posed question, the director lensed a life in Nagorno-Karabakh that is locked in a state of anticipation of a new war, with an eerie stillness hanging over Talish’s devastated landscapes. In the limbo of war, patriotic songs seem ceaseless in Talish, and kids at school learn defence moves and how to operate a gun.

Using intertitles as clear chronological markers, the film places us amidst the unfolding events, charting the trajectories of the protagonists’ stories. Azerbaijan launches an attack in September 2020 in a major escalation of the unresolved conflict in the region. In the wake of the renewed hostilities, Avo and Samvel’s families flee to the Armenian capital. Erik undergoes rehabilitation in Yerevan after losing one of his legs to a shrapnel injury. Karen has also been displaced and is now in Stepanakert, Nagorno-Karabakh. Closely following the protagonists over a span of three years, the film paints a grim picture of the spiralling tensions in the region, including the 2022 blockade of the enclave, Azerbaijan’s large-scale offensive in 2023 and the subsequent mass exodus of ethnic Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh.

War is never glorious, even when rendered into a piece of filmmaking or a verse. Pazoumian’s film evidences the sentiment, while clearly remaining faithful to Nagorno-Karabakh’s perspective and not stepping outside of it during the course of the film. With much sensitivity and an eye for visual nuance, the helmer weaves the theme of loss through much of his documentary, extending the metaphor of phantom pain as a way of understanding the ambiguous lived experience of losing one’s land. Pazoumian’s artful use of light further lends a melancholic undertone to the carefully composed and luminous imagery, crafting this timeless place, a Nagorno-Karabakh that is forever captured in people’s songs and imaginations.

The Black Garden was produced by France’s Solent Productions, in co-production with Belgium’s Naoko Films. Its international sales are being handled by Syndicado Film Sales.