November 18, 2004 - 21:20 AMT
"YARKHUSHTA" ("MILITARY DANCE") - PREMIERE OF YOUNG FILM DIRECTOR HARUTYUNIAN PICTURE HELD IN YEREVAN
The principal hero of "Yarkhushta" ("Military Dance") is Pargev - a volunteer soldier, who got disabled in the Artsakh (Karabakh) war and continues his struggle after reentering the peaceful life and comes out undefeated. The press and the country society has widely responded to the first film of young film director G. Harutyunian. Pargev, who lost his leg in the liberation war, goes to the town from his village to phone his daughter, who is in Holland. On his way he encounters the indifference and often contempt of people. He is taken for a mendicant in the town. A sexual minority representative, who had taken the former warrior for a beggar, throws a coin to him. Pargev's patience comes to an end and he strikes the person, who gave him the coin. At a certain moment the film hero finds himself in despair. Tearfully he asks his daughter by phone to speak Armenian with her children. The daughter suggests the father to leave all and to move to Holland.
Pargev, who shed his blood for the country, refuses. He also refuses from a Dutch artificial limb. "You will even be able to dance military dance yarkhushta," his daughter tells him. However Pargev objects, "An Armenian man should dance his dance on an Armenian prosthetic device on the Armenian land." In the final the hero dances yarkhushta - the dance of struggle, remaining undefeated in the native land.
"There is weeping in the film, the film director says, however it is not a weeping of despair, but a purifying, sobering weeping. …Pargev is one of those, who did not give up in the battlefield and his struggle continues."
The film premiere is also expected to be held in Moscow cinema in Yerevan.