LEDA DESIGN – “COMPANY’S DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY IS CONNECTED TO ARMENIA”- SAYS
VAHRAM MOURADIAN, PRESIDENT OF THE LEADING AMERICAN IT COMPANY

By Ruben Grdzelyan,
ARMINFO, 2004

LEDA Design, Inc., engaged in design and development of IP blocks for
digital, analog and mixed-signal Integrated Circuits, was established
in USA in 1995, and the Armenian Branch was founded in 2000. Late in
2003 a decision was made to transfer the main activities of the
company into Armenia. What are the reasons for that rather risky
decision and what is the result of its application, we managed to
clarify directly from the company’s President Dr. Vahram Mouradian.

– Dr. Mouradian, please describe the transition period and
difficulties connected with it.

– In November 2003 we decided to relocate our key engineering segment
into Armenia, and at the present moment it has been implemented –
engineering, marketing and production departments are located in
Armenia right now. In the beginning of 2004 we entered a risky stage
of operations, as this is the very first experience when a company
like ours expands its activity in Armenia only. In January 2004, with
the beginning of the transition period, LEDA Design’s shareholders
evaluated the task to be achieved and determined the deadline for
successful completion of the transition to Armenia based operations
using the existing manpower and engineering resources. In the first
three months of the year the company experienced losses, but in the
second quarter we succeeded in attracting engineering orders, and
their performance brought profitability. Forecasts for the third
quarter anticipate equal, if not better results compared to the second
quarter. Taking into consideration these positive development trends,
the company’s shareholders have made decisions to effect additional
investments. These investments will not only improve efficiency, but
will provide the basis for further development of our business. In the
near future we are planning to introduce new products on the world
chip design market with new types of interfaces, memory blocks for ICs
and EDA tools. Also, we are going to add IC testing in Armenia, a
function which previously was performed in the US.

On a related subject, LEDA has a taken a very strong stance in the
Armenian HR market against the practice of enticing employees from
other companies to “steal” technologies. From this point of view
Armenia has not yet spoiled its reputation, but the practice is
becoming a problem. The practice has spread into Armenia among
competing companies and it contradicts the principles of good business
practices and healthy competition, especially in the context of such a
narrow engineering market as the Armenian one. This kind of
dishonorable behavior shown by some, both foreign and local companies,
increases the cost of doing business in Armenia, making it less
attractive for potential investors. LEDA is actively working to
improve the situation, and we expect positive results.

In summary, however, I can confirm to you that Armenia is acknowledged
as a reliable partner in the international IC design market. Regarding
our plans for the future, our next task will be to firmly establish
our reputation, which requires positive dynamics of production growth,
development of new products, and expansion of supporting services.

– Actually, we can now consider the second stage in LEDA’s development
finished?

– The initial stage was raising the company itself, capable of develop
products and meeting demand. The next stage was opening of the
Armenian branch, and the transfer of the corporate operations into
Armenia.

– Well, about the third one, what will be the next stage, to your
mind?

– Our next step will be acquisition of strong brand recognition that
will allow us to start trading the company’s stock on international
stock exchanges. For an American-Armenian enterprise, it will be a
solid achievement.

– In the beginning of this year several employees of LEDA have been
dismissed. Taking into consideration the recent positive changes, do
you plan to restore the previous number of employees?

– Since the middle of July the number of LEDA employees has grown,
first of all, due to hiring the graduates of our educational
center. Moreover, we have increased salaries of many of our
engineers. In the near future we expect to announce new job openings,
as we continue to develop new products.

– Vast majority of the Armenia located IT-companies are branches of
the foreign firms. How can you explain your not traditional decision
to turn your branch into the Headquarters?

– First of all this decision is caused by my Armenian origin, next by
my sincere belief in the potential of my team and the bright future of
my home country. But the decision is still a risky one. Due to the
absence of a local market, the most challenging task in Armenia is
effective outbound sales. Another major obstacle for the conversion of
the foreign branches into Armenian companies is the lack of qualified
specialists. And it applies not only to marketing. The Armenian IT
labor market is very limited. For example, you can count on your
fingers the number of talented chip design engineers in Armenia. In
order to expand existing businesses and to create new businesses there
is no other way but to increase the number of engineers. The loss of
just a couple of experienced professionals by any Armenian IT company
or branch may lead to collapse. This problem will remain until
efficient models of labor market improvements are implemented. We are
working on it right now.

– Do you think it may be possible to smooth this problem by attracting
specialists of the Armenian origin from abroad?

– In order to do it, it is necessary to enhance the living standards
in Armenia, because salary is not the only decision factor for those
specialists – people desire high living standards. Besides that, let’s
not forget about the competition – the salary levels of the Armenian
specialists are getting close to the critical point, and compared to
some countries already exceed the limit, which means any further
increase will not allow the Armenian products to compete on the world
markets because of high net cost. The only way out is to make up for
the brain drain by training new specialists – and to educate two
specialists to replace each one lost, until Armenia becomes a location
of choice for highly qualified professionals. Otherwise stagnation is
unavoidable.

– Some time ago LEDA Design had got plans to place orders with two
Armenian plants: Scientific-Production Enterprise “Transistor” and
“MARS” plant. Do you have any news related to these plans?

– We could not engage with “Transistor”, as it was not possible to
bridge the gap between our technologies and the manufacturing
capacities of “Transistor”, but we still maintain certain hopes with
“Mars” in the field of placing manufacturing orders for some simple
printed circuits boards. But these are plans for the future.

Armenian opposition bloc against sending peacekeepers to Iraq

Arminfo
23 Sep 04

YEREVAN

The opposition Justice bloc is against sending Armenian peacekeepers
to Iraq, the secretary of the Justice parliamentary faction, Viktor
Dallakyan, said at a press conference today.

He said that the dispatch of the Armenian peacekeepers to Iraq
endangers Armenia’s national security and also the security of the
Armenian community in Iraq.

Armenian Speaker, OSCE envoy discuss Karabakh

Arminfo
23 Sep 04

YEREVAN

Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly Artur Bagdasaryan and the
special envoy of the OSCE chairman-in-office on the Nagornyy Karabakh
issue, Filip Dimitrov, today discussed the settlement of the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict.

As the press service of the Armenian National Assembly told Arminfo
news agency, during the meeting Filip Dimitrov noted that the Nagornyy
Karabakh conflict is perceived by the OSCE as a complicated problem
that is hard to solve. But it hopes that the sides will achieve
success in the negotiations. Artur Bagdasaryan informed Filip Dimitrov
of his point of view, adding that Armenia has always backed a peaceful
settlement to the conflict via political dialogue and that it
understands the need for mutual concessions.

The speaker of the Armenian parliament noted the importance of the
public opinion in the conflicting countries and the necessity of
establishing contacts between various social layers of Armenia and
Azerbaijan on the settlement of the conflict.

Bagdasaryan and Dimitrov noted the importance of regular meetings
between the two countries’ presidents and stressed the need to develop
parliamentary relations, taking into consideration the role and
meaning of parliaments in the settlement of conflicts.

Artur Bagdasaryan also touched upon regional problems, noting the
importance of Turkey’s neutral position in the settlement of the
Nagornyy Karabakh conflict and also the Azerbaijan side’s
non-constructive position on regional cooperation. He cited the
refusal to allow Armenian servicemen entry to Baku to take part in
NATO’s Cooperative Best Effort 2004 exercises as a specific example.

Bagdasaryan and Dimitrov also noted that the OSCE Minsk Group carried
out an important and consistent work to settle the conflict and
possessed adequate information about details of the process. Great
hopes are pinned particularly on the OSCE Minsk Group in the
settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. In addition, the sides
noted the need to develop parliamentary relations in the region. Other
issues of mutual interest were also discussed during the meeting.

Armenian election body approves by-election results

Arminfo
23 Sep 04

YEREVAN

The Central Electoral Commission of Armenia today summarized the final
results of the parliamentary by-elections in the 44th constituency and
approved the parliamentary mandate of the member of the Orinats Yerkir
Party [Law-Governed Country Party] and the head of the Sas group
company, Artak Sarkisyan.

We should note that Artak Sarkisyan gained 13,970 votes, while his
main opponent – the member of the Nik Aparan Union and the owner of a
chain of pharmacies and the Lavanda dry cleaners gained 5,578
votes. The remaining three candidates gained less than 2,000 votes.

[Passage omitted: Details]

DEFENCE MINISTER AND BRITISH AMBASSADOR TO ARMENIA TO SIGN MEMORANDUM ON
MUTUAL UNDERSTANDING ON SEPT 24

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 23. ARMINFO. The Ministry of Defence of the United
Kingdom and the Ministry of Defence of the Republic of Armenia have
agreed a Memorandum of Understanding on Defence Contacts and
Co-operation. The aim of the Memorandum is to further strengthen the
good relations which already exist between the two Ministries, and to
serve as a basis for increased co-operation between them in the field
of defence. ARMINFO was informed in Great Britain’s Embassy in
Armenia.

HE Mr Serge Sargsian, the Armenian Minister of Defence, and the
British Ambassador to Armenia, Miss Thorda Abbott-Watt, will sign the
Memorandum in a short ceremony at the Armenian Ministry of Defence in
Yerevan on Friday, 24 September 2004.

Over the last year the United Kingdom has sponsored places for 16
members of the Armenian Armed Forces to conduct a variety of training
courses outside Armenia, including the first Armenian cadet ever to
attend the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. The British Ministry
of Defence also funds English language training through the
Peacekeeping English Programme run by the British Council Armenia in
the Armenian Ministry of Defence. The Memorandum of Understanding
reflects a common recognition that stable and democratic sovereign
states contribute to confidence, stability and security in Europe as a
whole. It will put the existing co-operation programme on a formal
footing, and enable Britain and Armenia to develop further contacts in
areas such as the management of defence in democratic societies,
language training, peace support in humanitarian operations and arms
control.

IN KARABAKH PROBLEM ARMENIA’S OPPOSITION DOES NOT SHARE PRINCIPLE
“CONCESSION FOR CONCESSION”

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 23. ARMINFO. The absence of the Concept of national
security in Armenia is the reason for the failure of the policy of the
present ruling regime in all the spheres. Secretary of the opposition
bloc Justice Viktor Dallakian stated during the press conference
today.

According to him, the absence of the Concept makes impossible the
elaboration of foreign political, military and economic doctrines,
which, in its turn, hinders the development and correct coordination
of the activities in these spheres. Viktor Dallakian stressed that as
a result of untalented foreign political course of the authorities of
the country the Karabakh problem has reached a deadlock. The fact that
the international community takes the Karabakh conflict as a
territorial problem testifies. “Today the international community
insists on the settlement of the Karabakh problem on the basis of the
territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. The negative estimation of the
European structures to the elections to local self-government bodies
in Nagorny Karabakh is the evidence of it. In From the point of their
view these elections contradicted the principle of the territorial
integrity of Azerbaijan”, Viktor Dallakian said.

According to Dallakian, the report of Terry Davis concerning Nagorny
Karabakh, submitted during the sitting of the PACE Political
committee, is the evidence of the clumsy policy of the authorities of
Armenia in the Karabakh problem. The deputy reminded that it was
proposed in the report to settle the Karabakh problem on the basis of
the territorial integrity of the states. The position of Terry Davis,
who is the CE Secretary General, reflects the position of the whole
Council of Europe, Dallakian thinks. Besides, during his recent
interview the American cochairman of the OSCE Minsk Group Steven Mann
had stated that the most part of the territory of Azerbaijan is
occupied, in fact, calling the Armenian side occupants, Viktor
Dallakian said.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress

NKR President Gukasyan, OSCE envoy discuss conflict settlement

Noyan Tapan news agency
23 Sep 04

YEREVAN

The president of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic [NKR], Arkadiy
Gukasyan, received the special envoy of the OSCE chairman-in-office
for the Nagornyy Karabakh issue, Filip Dimitrov, on 23 September at
the representative office of the NKR in Armenia.

The head of the information department of the NKR president told Noyan
Tapan news agency that during the meeting, the sides discussed the
settlement of the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict and possible steps in
this context.

Filip Dimitrov stressed that the OSCE chairman-in-office is interested
in a peaceful settlement to the conflict and spoke about the need to
speed up the process.

The NKR president specially noted the importance of the status and
security of Nagornyy Karabakh. Arkadiy Gukasyan expressed his
confidence that it is impossible to settle the conflict without taking
into account the interests of the NKR people.

At the end of the meeting, the NKR president confirmed that the
Karabakh side is ready to resolve the existing problems through a
dialogue.

The meeting was also attended by the NKR foreign minister, Ashot
Gulyan, and the personal representative of the OSCE
chairman-in-office, Andrzej Kasprzyk.

Kazakhstan: Experts discuss ways of preventing bioterrorism

Kazakhstanskaya Pravda
22 Sep 04 p 6

A Kazakh seminar on biological security has spoken about the need to
step up security at laboratories in Central Asia and the Caucasus
where strains of dangerous diseases are kept. Raymond Zilinskas from
the US Centre of Nonproliferation Studies said there was a threat of
anthrax spreading on the Kazakh side of the Island of Vozrozhdeniye in
the Aral Sea where there was a biological weapons test facility in
Soviet times. The following is the text of Olga Malakhova’s report
entitled “Down with bioterrorism” and published in the Kazakh
newspaper Kazakhstanskaya Pravda on 22 September; subheadings inserted
editorially:

The recent return of SARS may be connected with the fact that during a
study its virus was taken out of a laboratory, where poor specialists
were working. Insecure laboratories is one of three reasons for the
spreading of very dangerous infection. Natural breeding grounds are
still the main cause of disease spreading. However, specialists say
that bioterrorism is the most dangerous way because it is much more
difficult to fight this type of WMD.

Not myth but real danger

This is not a myth but quite a real danger, said the participants in a
seminar on biological security in Central Asia and the Caucasus, which
ended in Almaty yesterday [21 September]. The protection of many
institutions that have collections of dangerous bacteria, to put it
mildly leaves much to be desired. Specialists from medical services
and scientific institutes from Central Asia and the Caucasus complain
that the level of security at laboratories and museums where strains
are kept, and the training of specialists and the material bases are
far from international standards. The financing of many remains at
1960s levels, guards are not armed and there is a lack of
transport. The plague-proof clothing that is often shown on TV seems
an anachronism, but even this clothing has not been provided to
everyone, a representative from Armenia said.

Against this background, our institutions with their equipment and
security are in a better situation. True, a strange man recently tried
to enter the laboratory of the Kazakh Scientific Centre of Quarantine
and Zoonosis Infections. However, his attempt was thwarted thanks to
good security. Modern equipment, security and a secure fence have
appeared thanks to aid from the USA. The USA can also support various
projects connected with the study and rehabilitation of the territory
on the Island of Vozrozhdeniye in the Aral Sea, where there was a
biological weapons test facility in Soviet times.

Former biological facility poses threat

“The island needs to be studied by scientists and rehabilitated,”
Raymond Zilinskas, director of the chemical and biological weapons
nonproliferation programme at the US Centre of Nonproliferation
Studies [the Monterey Institute of International Studies], told a
Kazakhstanskaya Pravda newspaper correspondent. “There is no threat
of anthrax spreading from the Uzbek part of the island. American and
Uzbek specialists took care of this: they have reburied and
disinfected the area where biological weapons used to be kept.

However, there is still a threat, the representative of the Monterey
Institute of International Studies believes, and he expresses concern
that the Russian side has not provided information on what pathogens
were used in experiments. This information would help Kazakh
scientists determine the level of danger and measures for
rehabilitation. The difficulty is that it is unknown which pathogens
are natural and which are artificial man-made ones.

Strains of anthrax may remain on the island for a long time and infect
any living creature. Oil exploration and extraction work that is
planned to be carried out on the island pose a special
threat. Pollutants containing deadly strains may emerge during
geological exploration works, explosions and other activities.

Raymond Zilinskas hopes that the problem of clearing the territory of
the former biological weapons test facility will be resolved in two or
three years with the help of the American side.

Kazakhstan can train specialists

The seminar, which was organized by the Monterey Institute [of
International Studies] and the M. Aykimbayev Kazakh Scientific Centre
of Quarantine and Zoonosis Infections, discussed ways of making
specialists’ work safe for themselves and preventing very dangerous
diseases from being stolen and spread. It is necessary to create a
joint model for controlling biological materials and bring closer
legislation on export control.

Kazakhstan has created a network of sanitary and quarantine stations,
and a programme to improve them is being implemented. There is a plan
to set up a regional centre at the Kazakh scientific centre to train
specialists from Central Asia and the Caucasus. Many scientists from
these regions studied here. The centre has trained over 30,000
specialists for various republics [of the former Soviet Union] and
countries since 1948. A World Health Organization [WHO]
representative, May Chu, believes that the Kazakh Centre of Quarantine
and Zoonosis Infections has a modern scientific basis and intellectual
potential. Its six specialists underwent training on international
standards on biosecurity. The WHO will further continue supporting
the programme to train specialists.

Friday Review: ScreenReview: FILM RELEASES: Steve Rose on stunning tale of
warring Chinese states, plus the rest of the week’s films

The Guardian – United Kingdom
Sep 24, 2004

STEVE ROSE

Hero

4/5

Dir: Zhang Yimou

With: Jet Li, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung, Zhang Ziyi, Chen
Daoming

99 mins, cert 12A

This Chinese epic may owe its existence to Crouching Tiger, Hidden
Dragon (which was essentially an American-Chinese epic), but it
betters that film on most counts. In contrast to Hollywood’s recent,
sprawling attempts at majestic action movies, everything seems to be
in tune with everything else here, all governed by a rigid formal
structure. Set during the “warring states” period before the entity of
China had been created, the action is framed around a meeting between
the Qin emperor (Chen Daoming) and an assassin named Nameless (Jet
Li). We see in flashback how Nameless eliminated the emperor’s most
feared enemies, Broken Sword, Sky and Flying Snow. But the King doubts
him, and offers a different explanation of events. And so they trade
stories like a chess game, writing China’s history in the process.

Each segment is colour-coded, so the dominant colour is red in the
first story, blue in the next and so on – a clever device that
preserves simplicity and allows the art department to pull out all the
stops. Hero really is one of the best-looking films ever made – a
combination of stunning landscapes, graceful duels and rigorous
compositions, all topped off with the cream of Chinese acting
talent. If there’s one flaw, it’s that the formal stateliness stifles
any sympathy we might have for these characters, who spend a fair
amount of time dying tragically. More intriguing is the overt theme of
Chinese unification, by no means a redundant topic. Where director
Zhang was once banned from making films in China, now he’s firmly at
the centre of the establishment, and essentially delivers an argument
in favour of tyranny. But there are sly hints of subversion. The
heroism of the title is open to ambiguity, and at one point the film’s
recurring motif, the pro-unification phrase “all under heaven”, is
literally written in the sand.

Red Lights

4/5

Dir: Cedric Kahn

With: Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Carole Bouquet, Vincent Deniard,
Charline Paul

105 mins, cert 15

After the excellent Roberto Succo, here’s another smooth,
sophisticated, real-world thriller from Cedric Kahn. Again the
transgression of the criminal is a theme, but this time it’s conflated
with the rules of the road, which proves to be an extremely rich
combination. And there’s something rather brilliant about a movie in
which the supposed hero gets increasingly plastered.

We’ve lost track of how much Antoine (Jean-Pierre Darroussin) has had
to drink before he and his wife (Carole Bouquet) have even left
Paris. Their car is one of the millions heading south for the summer
holidays, but Antoine doesn’t want to be one of the herd. His decision
to take a “short cut”, followed by a few bar stops, prompts his wife
to abandon him. Antoine then picks up a surly hitcher, whom he pretty
much knows to be the escaped fugitive mentioned on the radio. Antoine
sees his passenger as a soulmate, a fellow rebel. “You don’t give a
shit about their laws!” he proclaims. The fugitive, by contrast is
keen for Antoine to do exactly that. The story runs out of gas a
little when it leaves the road, but on the whole its marvellously
gripping, with a good few surprises up its sleeve.

Cellular

3/5

Dir: David R. Ellis

With: Kim Basinger, Chris Evans, William H Macy, Eric Christian Olsen,
Jessica Bie

l94 mins, cert 15

Most recent thrillers would have fallen apart completely had someone
possessed a mobile phone. This is the solution: a high-concept,
breakneck dash through the many features of the new Nokia 6600. The
hero, whose real name is unfortunately Chris Evans, receives a random
call from the hysterical Kim Basinger, who has been kidnapped. From
then on, it’s up to Evans and his Nokia to save the day. There are
some genuinely funny moments, but the writers are eventually defeated
by their hi-tech remit, and resort to an off-the-shelf shoot-out
ending.

Save the Green Planet!

3/5

Dir: Jeong Jun-hwan

With: Shin Ha-kyun, Baek Yun-shik, Hwang Jeong-min, Lee Jae-yong

118 mins, cert 18

A bizarre Korean sci-fi movie that’s so inventively demented, it’s
hard to dislike. It’s the unpredictable story of a loner named Lee
(Shin Ha-kyun), who attempts to save the earth by kidnapping a
pharmaceuticals executive whom he believes to be an alien. So,
naturally, he shaves off his prisoner’s hair, applies antihistamine
cream to his feet, then tortures him with electricity. Even David Icke
would blanch at Lee’s apocalyptic conspiracy theory, but we’re
successfully kept guessing about his sanity until the very
end. Technically accomplished, manically acted and extremely violent,
it’s constantly on the verge of collapsing into complete nonsense, but
never actually does.

Vodka Lemon

3/5

Dir: Hiner Saleem

With: Romen Avinian, Lala Sarkissian, Ivan Franek, Armen Marutyan

84 mins, cert PG

Another dry, droll, almost dialogue-free drama from an obscure corner
of Europe, to file alongside the work of Georgia’s Otar Iosseliani and
Finland’s Aki Kaurismaki. This is set in rural Armenia, which appears
to be a desolate post-Soviet country where the only commodity is vodka
and the national pastime is sitting outside on chairs, despite the
freezing temperature. It’s a bright, empty, snowbound landscape in
which any man-made object looks surreal – a hospital bed, a piano,
even the graveyard where two widowed survivors form a tentative,
courteous romance. Nothing new, you might say, but this establishes
its own distinctive rhythm, and puts its country on the map.

She Hate Me

2/5

Dir: Spike Lee

With: Anthony Mackie, Kerry Washington, Ellen Barkin, Monica Bellucci,
Jim Brown

138 mins, cert 15

Spike Lee seems to have a backlog of issues he’s steamed up about. So
here he attempts tackle them all at once: the corruption of corporate
America; the persecution of marginalised peoples; the tyranny of the
heterosexual nuclear family; black homophobia; even the fate of the
security guard who exposed the Watergate scandal. The result is one of
the oddest films he’s ever made. The hero (Mackie) is a sacked
corporate whistleblower who finds a lucrative new line of work
impregnating lesbians, including his ex-girlfriend, her girlfriend,
and the daughter of a mafia crime boss. With a star-filled cast,
animated interludes, and a hugely improbably storyline, there’s rarely
a dull moment, but you’re constantly wondering what Lee is really
trying to say. At least he’s trying to say something.

Switchblade Romance

2/5

Dir: Alexandre Aja

With: Cecile De France, Maiwenn Le Besco, Philippe Nahon, Franck
Khalfoun

91 mins, cert 18

This presents itself as an edgy new French horror movie, but it’s
essentially a derivative old-school horror movie – with a twist that
only leaves you feeling even more cheated. It starts with urbanites
Alex (Maiwenn le Besco) and Marie (Cecile de France) coming to stay at
Marie’s family in their isolated farmhouse. But after a bloody
slaughter on the first night, courtesy of a random redneck, they’re
the only two left. What follows is less a game of suspense than a
drawn-out game of hide-and-seek, with the requisite false alarms and
idiotic decisions. Almost everybody needs killing at least twice
before they stay dead, and there’s some questionable gender
stereotyping to boot. If nothing else, though, it’s a warning against
selling axes in service stations.

Spivs

1/5

Dir: Colin Teague

With: Ken Stott, Kate Ashfield, Nick Moran, Jack Dee94 mins, cert 15

No! It’s back! The Brit gangster comedy rears its empty, Brylcreemed
head again. It’s all here: smart suits, split screens, short cons and
Nick Moran – until spiv-in-chief Ken Stott discovers a lorry load of
illegal immigrants. Then it lurches clumsily into an issue drama, as
he takes two eastern European urchins under his wing. The presence of
comics like Jack Dee and Paul Kaye only reinforces the impression that
these are two incompatible genres struggling to coexist. It’s like
Lock, Stock meets In This World.

The Punisher

1/5

Dir: Jonathan Hensleigh

With: Tom Jane, John Travolta, Will Patton, Laura Harring, Ben
Foster124 mins, cert 18

This lunk-headed action movie feels like something you’d have found on
video-store shelves in the mid-1980s, and passed over in favour of
something better, like Commando or Cobra. It’s the same old formula: a
gym-pumped brute of a hero (Tom Jane); a distastefully high body
count; and lots of big explosions. For John Travolta, it looks like
Pulp Fiction never happened.

The Ister

3/5

Dirs: David Barison, Daniel Ross

189 mins, no cert

Few films this, or any other, year will be such an unashamedly
intellectual long haul. Part travelogue up the Danube from mouth to
source, part meditation on writings by Martin Heidegger, this
three-hour documentary is not for the faint-hearted. The title is
borrowed from a poem by 17th-century German Friedrich Holderlin (Ister
being the Danube’s classical Greek name), that in turn gave rise to a
series of lectures Heidegger gave at the height of the second world
war. Heidegger, of course, is forever tainted by his enthusiastic
embrace of Nazism; here, with considerable rigour, a series of French
philosophers attempt to grapple with his thought. Another
controversial figure, film-maker Hans-Jurgen Syberberg, of Hitler: A
Film from Germany fame, weighs in for a few minutes at the end.

Film: Vodka Lemon (PG) Hiner Saleem ii888

The Independent – United Kingdom
Sep 24, 2004

Reviewed by Robert Hanks

An Armenian-French production from the “Isn’t life a terrible thing”
school, set in a remote, snowbound Kurdish village, where the collapse
of Communism has left much of the population without jobs or money,
and the main pastimes are visiting the graves of loved ones and
drinking something called “vodka lemon”. Hamo (Romen Avinian), an
elderly widower, begins a gentle courtship of Nina (Lala Sarkissian),
a widow, whom he meets every day on the bus; but these vestiges of a
plot are crowded out by would-be bittersweet, whimsical tableaux of
local eccentricities and fortitude in the face of despair – an elderly
man is towed through the snow on his steel bed; a man on horseback
gallops through the picture every 10 minutes or so; and, at the end,
Hamo and Nina sit at her piano, playing a tune as the instrument rolls
down the road. Lovely mountain scenery, but that doesn’t make up for
the self-indulgence.