| The 9th Company | |
| Directed by | Fyodor Bondarchuk |
|---|---|
| Produced by | Fyodor Bondarchuk Aleksandr Rodnyansky Yelena Yatsura |
| Written by | Yuri Korotkov |
| Starring | Fyodor Bondarchuk Aleksei Chadov Mikhail Evlanov |
| Music by | Dato Evgenidze |
| Cinematography | Maksim Osadchy |
| Editing by | Igor Litoninsky |
| Distributed by | Art Pictures Group |
| Release date(s) | September 29, 2005 |
| Running time | 130 min. |
| Country |  Russia Ukraine Finland |
| Language | Russian |
| Budget | $9,500,000 |
| Gross revenue | 24 million USD |
The 9th Company (Russian: 9 Рота) is a Russian / Finnish / Ukrainian film by Fyodor Bondarchuk about the Soviet war in Afghanistan released in 2005. The film follows a band of young recruits from a farewell ceremony with friends and family back home, through their often brutal training in Uzbekistan's Fergana Valley, up to a bloody battle on a mountain top in Afghanistan against the mujahideen.
The film is based on a real battle that took place at Hill 3234 in early 1988, during the last large-scale Soviet military operation Magistral. In the movie, only one soldier from the company survives and the company is said to have been "forgotten" by the military command because of the Soviet withdrawal. But in reality, the story was different.
The 9th Company, 345th Guards Airborne Regiment was pinned down under heavy fire on "Hill 3234" between 7 and 8 January 1988. They managed to stop twelve attacks by an estimated 250−500 Mujahideen. The company lost 6 men. Another 28 out of the total 39 were wounded. Two of the killed soldiers were posthumously awarded the golden star of the Hero of the Soviet Union. The unit was in constant communication with headquarters and got everything the regimental commander, Colonel Valery Vostrotin, could provide in terms of ammunition, reinforcements, and helicopter evacuation of the wounded.[1]
The film received a mixed reaction from the veterans of that war, who pointed to a number of inaccuracies, but nevertheless, judging by ticket sales, was embraced by the general public, and even by Russian President Vladimir Putin. It was also given the Golden Eagle Award for the Best Feature Film by the Russian Academy of Cinema Arts.
It was directed by Fyodor Bondarchuk, the son of classic Soviet film director Sergei Bondarchuk, whose 1959 Destiny of a Man was a landmark in film treatments of World War II and who also shot an Oscar-winning epic based on Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace.
Although not the first movie to be made about the Soviet Army's experience in Afghanistan (others include Afghan Breakdown by Vladimir Bortko), 9th Company was the first attempt by Russian filmmakers to create a big-screen, big-budget movie about that war, comparable to the American Vietnam War movies of the 1980s (Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Born on the Fourth of July). The film was released in September 2005 and became a Russian box office hit, generating $7.7 million in its first five days of release alone, a new domestic record.[2]
In 2006, Russia selected the movie as its candidate for Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film nomination.
See also
References
- ^ Schofield, The Russian Elite, Greenhill, 1993, pp. 120-125
- ^ "Afghanistan War Movie Breaks Russian Box Office Record". Mosnews.com. 2005-10-05. Archived from the original on 2006-11-21. http://web.archive.org/web/20061121053405/http://mosnews.com/news/2005/10/05/newcinemarecord.shtml.
External links
- Official website (Russian) (English)
- The 9th Company at the Internet Movie Database
- The 9th Company at Allmovie
- Afghanistan War Movie Breaks Russian Box Office Record
- Photo of Fyodor Bondarchuk, the director, and Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, watching this film
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