Battles

The Dutch poet and painter Armando introduced the term “guilty landscape” to describe places that had once been the scene of terrible events such as crimes against humanity, betrayal and murder. As well as being simply a witness, the landscape is often itself mutilated by war, violence or some other military display. The scars can still be found in fields and forests. Director Isabelle Tollenaere travels to four locations in Europe to document these places and demonstrate the effect that history has on populations living with the scars. In Belgium, she accompanies bomb disposal experts detonating 70-year-old bombs. In Latvia, she films a military training camp that has been transformed into a tourist attraction. In Albania, a bunker has been repurposed as a cowshed. In Russia, seamstresses earn their daily bread making inflatable weaponry that will serve as targets on a shooting range. Tollenaere uses these four icons of war – the bomb, the soldier, the bunker and the tank – to tell her story in four chapters. Dialogue is almost entirely absent, allowing ambient sound to take a leading role. Combining this with precise framing and an unhurried pace, the director creates a heightened level of concentration. These are the qualities that won Battles the FIPRESCI award at the 2015 International Film Festival Rotterdam. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)