Tangerines

It's a time of war in writer-director Zaza Urushadze's poignant film "Tangerines," titled after a bumper crop of citrus that an Estonian man, Margus (Elmo N�ganen) is struggling to harvest and sell before the fruit begins to rot on the tree.

Helping Margus is Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak), a man of enormous dignity and composure who makes a living running his own small crate-building business. Other than these two, and a village doctor, everyone has abandoned their tiny community in the mountains of the Abkhazeti region of Georgia. It's 1992; the Soviet Union has disintegrated, and old national and ethnic rivalries are boiling over once again, bringing war to Ivo's door.

Ivo stays put even though his entire family has relocated. Margus plans to leave, also, once his tangerine crop is harvested -- a harvest that is increasingly in doubt, since assistance promised by one Abkhazian commander and then another fails to appear. In the midst of this, a new problem drops into the men's laps: Two contingents of soldiers, one Georgian and the other Chechen, clash right in front of Margus' house, leaving all but two soldiers dead. The rub is that one member of each side has survived. Ivo takes both of the injured men in and tends them under his own roof, knowing that if reinforcements from the other side should happen along and discover what he's done, he'll be executed for daring to help a fighter from the "enemy" side.

The Chechen, a Muslim named Ahmed (Giorgi Nakashidze), comes from a culture that honors elders; since Ivo is old enough to be his father, Ahmed gives his word that he won't tarnish Ivo's hospitality by attempting to harm the Georgian solder, a fellow named Nika (Mikhail Meskhi) while the two of them are recuperating in Ivo's home. Eventually, the two soldiers begin talking -- not agreeing, but at least talking. Meantime, Ivo and Margus are carrying on a conversation of their own, much of it in silence as they share a worry about whether the tangerines will go to waste. The metaphor is unmissable, but it works.

It's only a matter of time before the violence that's raging across the land sweeps over Ivo's home, and Margus' orchard. But what will the outcome be? And will either soldier have learned anything from time spent under the roof of a man who refuses to take sides, standing up instead for the rights of all human beings?

Urushadze's script doesn't try for subtlety, and nor does his direction, but he doesn't need to be subtle to make his point. A strong cast makes the dialogue work, but they're even more effective at the moments when they are not speaking -- and communicating all the same. The film may deal with grim realities, but it also finds space for humor and playfulness, and if the parallel between the fruits of human labor over the soil and the sanctity of human life are a little overt, there's another, less insistent comparison going on here too: That of two hot-blooded, self-righteous young men at the table of a wiser father figure. This isn't a film about hoping for a harvest so much as one about the inescapable ties that make human beings -- all human beings -- a single extended family.

"Tangerines" would make for a fine play, but it's also an effective, memorable movie.