“Yarkhushta” – premiere of film director’s picture held in Yerevan

PanArmenian News
Nov 18 2004

“YARKHUSHTA” (“MILITARY DANCE”) – PREMIERE OF YOUNG FILM DIRECTOR
HARUTYUNIAN PICTURE HELD IN YEREVAN

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ 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.