Osa Archivum Catalog

The Three Rooms of Melancholia

Summary: This poetic and very sophisticated documentary is divided into three chapters, in three Rooms. In each of them, the atmosphere is determined by one predominant emotion. With very few words but with lots of eloquent cinematic means, the film speaks about basic emotional and mental states. In the first Room, we follow young boys, obedient cadets at a military school in St. Petersburg. These children of thirteen or fourteen are not here by choice: most of them come from dysfunctional families. Just by observing their morning rituals, the school's rigid discipline and their way of interacting, one gets a notion of their enormous solitude. One of the boys shifts the story to the second Room – Breathing – where we witness the doomed lives of the people of Grozny. The last Room – Remembering – crosses the Chechen border into the neighbouring province of Ingushetia, where people fight out their own tragedy. With a keen eye for detail, especially human faces, and with precise timing, the director successfully creates remarkable, emotionally loaded scenes. By combining vocals from the Orthodox Church with folk and classical music, together with pure sounds from nature, the film becomes uplifting and multilayered.

Item Type	Current Location	Call Number	Status	Shelving Location	Public Note
DVD-ROM	OSA Film Library	FL Record 1030	Available	-	-
Digital film	OSA Film Library	FL Record 1030 (HU_OSA_00002712.mp4)	Available		Access Copy, MP4 format