''Afghan Breakdown'' (, translit. Afganskiy Izlom) is a 1991 war

drama Drama is the specific Mode (literature), mode of fiction Mimesis, represented in performance: a Play (theatre), play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on Radio drama, radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a g ...

film about the

Soviet–Afghan War The Soviet–Afghan War took place in the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan from December 1979 to February 1989. Marking the beginning of the 46-year-long Afghan conflict, it saw the Soviet Union and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic o ...

directed by Vladimir Bortko and co-produced by

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

( Lenfilm).

Michele Placido Michele Placido (; born 19 May 1946) is an Italian actor, director and screenwriter. He began his career on stage, and first gained mainstream attention through a series of roles in films directed by the likes of Mario Monicelli and Marco Belloc ...

plays the protagonist, Major Bandura, a commander of a unit of Soviet paratroopers, co-starring with several popular Soviet actors. Director Vladimir Bortko invited Mikhail Leshchinskiy (a Soviet TV war reporter who worked in Afghanistan for 4.5 years) as a co-writer and visited

Kabul Kabul is the capital and largest city of Afghanistan. Located in the eastern half of the country, it is also a municipality, forming part of the Kabul Province. The city is divided for administration into #Districts, 22 municipal districts. A ...

and Kandahar in 1988 to research on the ground.Mikhail Leshchinskiy
at The Pages of the Afghan History website (in Russian)

Plot

The events unfold just before the start of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1988. Lieutenant ''Steklov'', son of a high-ranking General, is assigned to Afghanistan, hoping to take part in combat and earn some medals before the war ends. Sgt. Arsionov ( Aleksei Serebryakov) combines his combat experience and bravery with brutal hazing of young conscripts back on the field base. Major Bandura's, tour of duty commander of the paratrooper-assault battalion, has expired. He is free to go home and reunite with his wife whom he has almost forgot. This means leaving his mistress Katya ( Tatyana Dogileva), a nurse in the base's hospital—to much anticipation from Bandura's superior Leonid, commander of the paratrooper-assault regiment ( Mikhail Zhygalov), who is in love with Katya. Anxiety is felt by many characters about the politico-social changes taking place back in the Soviet Union during the

Perestroika ''Perestroika'' ( ; rus, перестройка, r=perestrojka, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg, links=no) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associ ...

. Bandura himself thinks he might not be able to adapt. Katya says that Afghanistan will be remembered as the best part of their lives. The Soviets arrange a deal with a local Afghan

warlord Warlords are individuals who exercise military, Economy, economic, and Politics, political control over a region, often one State collapse, without a strong central or national government, typically through informal control over Militia, local ...

that he won't take action against the withdrawing Soviet troops in exchange for weapons and supplies. When asked why he needs more weapons as the war seems to be coming to an end, he replies that his war will go on for a very long time. On its way back to base the convoy that has delivered the supplies is ambushed by another faction of the Mujahideen. The paratroopers take cover and fight back with only a few casualties, but the road is blocked by a damaged fuel tanker. While Bandura personally drives a

tank A tank is an armoured fighting vehicle intended as a primary offensive weapon in front-line ground combat. Tank designs are a balance of heavy firepower, strong armour, and battlefield mobility provided by tracks and a powerful engine; ...

to push the tanker off the road, the inexperienced Steklov dashes forward attempting to lead troops to counterattack and is badly wounded. Later, his leg is amputated at the hospital, which adds to the stack of Bandura's career problems. Bandura decides to stay with his men for a while and lead a retaliatory mission to kill a Mujahideen leader, who is presumed wounded and taken to the neutral warlord's village. When the preparations are finished, Bandura comes to say good bye to Katya, who is scheduled to leave the country on the morrow. A junkie soldier at the hospital insults him by insubordination but Bandura suddenly shows no will for disciplining him. Instead, he requests to be replaced by some other officer on the mission, citing a sore foot as a pretext. But after realization that his company is setting out, he resumes command. It goes awry again when the neutral warlord is accidentally killed in the raid and his men become hostile and together with the Mujahideen attack the paratroopers. Bandura is able to pull his unit out mostly intact, but they are pinned down and call in an Mi-24 airstrike that obliterates the village. After the strike, Bandura becomes apathetic, and without apparent reason, re-enters the village alone. He finds nobody alive except for a 10-year boy clinging to an AK-47. Bandura hesitates, unsure what to do, then walks away, allowing the boy to shoot him in the back and kill him. The final scene shows dozens of Soviet helicopters flying away from the devastated village.

References

External links

* {{Authority control 1990 films Lenfilm films Soviet war films Italian war films 1990s Russian-language films Films directed by Vladimir Bortko Films set in Afghanistan Films set in 1988 Soviet–Afghan War films Soviet multilingual films Italian multilingual films 1991 multilingual films Russian-language war films

Plot

See also

References

External links