“The Black Backyard” is a movie full of tragedy. It circles lives hopelessly ravaged but persists in staking its claims on what they cherish and refuse to let go of: group and homeland. Each are foundational to a way of id. The specter of uprooting is an assault on selfhood that’s constructed by kinship with the land we occupy, constructing our properties and lives, and forging affective networks of friendship. Director Alexis Pazoumian trains his gaze on the cruel vagaries which can be visited upon the inhabitants of Talish, a village within the disputed area of Nagorno-Karabakh, situated on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

After the Soviet collapse within the Nineteen Nineties, the largely Armenian-majority populace of Karabakh declared themselves as a republic, resisting integration with Azerbaijan and asserted its independence. Nonetheless, it wasn’t acknowledged as a republic by the worldwide group, triggering a spate of bloody combating that has taken on numerous manifestations by the a long time and continues to this present day. A vicious Azeri army offensive left Talish in devastation. In December 2019, solely twenty households returned to the village, hoping to reassemble and piece again collectively their shattered properties regardless of a stark data of the utter futility of rebuilding a life on such unsure, deeply hazardous floor.

Pazoumian doesn’t plunge us into the warmth of aggressive incursions mounted by the Azeri military and the violent clashes that precipitate the fixed state of unpredictability and imminent exodus. As a substitute, we’re made to linger with the shadow of the chaos and bloodshed forged on the place and its folks, forcing their lives into everlasting instability. The battle has a strong, unwavering presence nearly all over the place in Talish, within the mass of particles lining each nook and cranny and the militarisation making its manner even into lecture rooms. Children are taught how one can deal with and intention Kalashnikovs. Patriotic songs are a fixture in uncommon moments of merrymaking.

Droves of youths join recruitment into the army forces. Spanning three years and interweaving views pitched by three generations of males, the movie traces a trajectory of despair and accentuating bleakness, from shedding every thing to taking up arms to defend one’s homeland, holding no worry within the numb absence of 1’s family members. In addition to a twentysomething Erik and the middle-aged Karen, we comply with two youngsters and shut pals, Avo and Samvel, navigating their scary circumstances when, at any second, they is perhaps ripped aside.

Residents might select security by evacuating their properties and searching for refuge within the Armenian capital of Yerevan, however the tug that binds them to their native village is an amazing power of its personal. Although as the ultimate part warningly suggests, even the capital won’t be proof against the Azeri invasion. The sobering documentary dangles its brutal questions with directness – how are you going to casually fling apart ties to your house? It’s gut-wrenching to witness folks being systemically stripped of essentially the most elementary humanitarian security and safety, failed in each doable regard as they wrestle to patch collectively a life in all its corrosive, horrifically amped-up volatility.

The barbaric shelling occurs with such excessive suddenness the act of leaving barely will get the time it wants. Villagers are sharply conscious of the rapid, immense hazard their lives could be shrouded in in the event that they select to remain again, but they make that decision. Many maintain returning to the precarious, bordering area of Karabakh, through which Talish is located, regardless of the jeopardy and desert on the onset of strikes. Karen recounts having needed to flee thrice as a result of struggle.

Nonetheless, the intertitles dutifully popping up and allotting a form of chronological operate work to the movie’s detriment. Certain, it provides a bigger sense of the battle’s timeline and rampant, escalating depth however typically it jerks us out of a specific second within the narrative, interrupting an emotional thread of connection. The place is the shelter these folks must have? All the world appears to have turned itself away.

“The Black Backyard” is a piercing, rallying enchantment in opposition to this abandonment, calling on us to care and have interaction deeply not only for this explicit battle however for any such semblance of it that has echoes nearly all over the place within the fractured modern second. Powerfully reinstating an unbreakable bond with one’s residence and land within the face of absolute muscular opposition and intimidation, Pazoumian’s movie is a vital and galvanizing work.

The Black Backyard premiered at CPH:DOX Competition 2024.

The Black Backyard (2024) Film Hyperlinks: MUBI