Customer Reviews

Immortal Fortress: A Look Inside Chechnya's Warrior Culture [VHS]

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Immortal Fortress" is a rare look into a culture completely closed from foreigners. In light of the current conflict exploding in Chechnya, this film is an important story of a culture, its struggles, and its attitudes towards war told from the people themselves. While viewers leave the film with an increased understanding and sympathy for the Chechen's desire for independence, as well as a sense of awe for their David-and-Goliath-type victory, Mr. Billingsley manages to maintain an objective balance. Though the only voices heard are those of the Chechens, it is their own brutality and hatred that condemns them-- speaking of the inhumanity of the Russians on one hand, then jovially describing their own brutal acts with pride. The danger faced by the filmmaker in entering Chechnya is a worthy story in itself, bested only by the journalistic importance of the story he came out with.

I was hoping for two things when I bought this video...one, to be emotionally moved and two, to attain decent quality archival footage. I received neither. Although there is a lot of footage, the editing is a bit fast and chaotic with an addition of cheesy (and overdone) video effects to "heighten" the intensity. I found the film to be both patronizing and pretty pretentious. Its a pity...there's quite an opportunity for a real heartwrenching, "war is bad" theme but instead I saw something that felt like propaganda.

Great movie, I only say this because it's just about the only documentary I have ever seen on this war. Theres maybe all together 3 minutes of actual combat footage in this film. I was really impressed that this film maker did make it out of there with his head still attached to his body. Chechens are notorious for kidnapping.

I was dissapointed in the fact that they rarely discussed tactics, the only one I recall is about street fighting, and how the Chechens would find two Russian squads at both ends of a street and one of them would run through the middle and fire in both directions and the Russians would end up shooting at each other for 30 minutes...they only realized they were fighting there comrades when they called in for artillery fire. I thought that was amazing.

This video made me realize that Russia is no longer the superpower that it was before. Many think that Russo-Chechen war is not only part of Russia's history but worlds as well. This video describes how Chechen civilians struggle to overcome Russian agression by taking arms and defending each others backyard. This video has real combat futage, which is hard to find at this point. The bad thing about this video is that it mostly tells the story behind the Chechen population, it doesn't cover Russian point of view. What really made me love this video is the interview with warlord S. Basayev and his opinions about the war. If you really want to know what happend in Chechnya and why it happend, buy this video.

Simplistic bit of propaganda. The journalist who put this together was clearly won over by the Chechen cause, but the result is not particularly insightful or informative. Perhaps a good introduction for those who know nothing about the conflict, but not much good for anything more.

The video was well presented and the images (especially those of battle scenes) were visually clear. A fair opportunity for the Chechens to present their side of the story. This video also put into serious question the Russian propaganda that demonizes the Chechen population, as the Chechens showed much more discipline and humanity than the invading Russians did. It also showed that the Russian army was in fact defeated and humiliated by ordinary Chechen boys and men, and not the "foreign mercenaries" Russia fervently cries out to the world. On the other hand, I could not comprehend why Arab war chants were edited into some of the footage. I thought this was quite ironic, given the Arab's cowardice indifference and even pro-Russian sentiment. This typical behavior continues into Russia's second invasion of Chechnya starting in September of 1999. The most surprising thing is that the Chechens feel utter sympathy, not hate, for the Arabs and the entire Islamic world for the magnitude of the weakness and apathy they have displayed. Good job by the author of this video.