Face to face, the importance of a heavy film and the truths of that time!

Face to Face – the importance of a serious movie and the truths of that time PART 1 The Movie The movie "Face to Face" is not a serious movie! On the contrary. It's a great movie! Like other pearls of our cinematography, it is part of the golden pantheon of film festival cup winners over the years but, together with films like "Poppies on the Walls", "General Gramophone" and "The Way of Letters" stand out from other movies. Why? Because in such films there is the autobiography, the history of a people. Different moments of its history. In the concrete case, the big clash between Albania and the former Soviet Union. Adapted into a film based on the novel "Dimri i madh" by Ismail Kadare, the film has its own changes compared to the book but also changes compared to the original script. For example, Ismail Kadare's book was originally prepared to be called "The Winter of Great Solitude", but for reasons that are already known, it was first published under the title "The Great Winter". Also, the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces, Veli Llakaj, when he read the script immediately, made remarks that, according to him, did not correspond to the reality of that time, but also to the appearance of the military during services on land or even in submarines and others remarks like these. But the merit of the film is that it accurately reflects that difficult, cold time, the most difficult situation for Albania from any political or military point of view during the 46 years of that system (1944-1990). Perhaps because the film, through more dramatic, theatrical shots, colors of nature, places where the eye could not reach, such as Military-Archaeological Pashaliman, but also music, really reflects the atmosphere of the break with the Soviet Union, it has remained in the opinion of art lovers as " a heavy film". In fact, after the break with the Soviet Union, we destroyed everything that resembled a great love! They destroyed and sabotaged everything they had offered us during a great love too! We were initially left with only a few books that were called yellow, monuments, of Lenin and Stalin, an oil town named after Stalin, Lenin's mausoleum and…a book! "Big Winter" by Ismail Kadare. In fact, when the book saw the light of publication, it had not been long since that endless winter that was a little like the winters of Leningrad during the second world war, but when the film was first shown in cinemas, many people did not know much about it. for all that had happened. Of course, the "History of the Party" texts in high school "enlightened" the adolescent's mind, but they mostly referred to the Meeting of the Communist Parties in Moscow, etc. On the other hand, not much light was shed on public opinion about our retention of submarines. It was the hot spot of the great divide! Few people knew anything about submarines and when they heard about their maintenance they often considered it as something normal and easy due to lack of information! Also, few people knew that the Pashaliman Military-Naval Base was the Warsaw Treaty Military-Naval Base! After a long silence (1961-1979), the film clearly brought to light what had happened in that great clash of two different theories, almost of the same policy, which, at the Pashaliman Military-Naval Base in Vlora for a little turned into a physical confrontation, that is, with a gun! We had just come out of another major breakdown. With China and the part that had to be erased from memory about the Chinese it was easy to forget what you knew about the Soviets. Also, as a sensation it was of great proportions and did not allow you the luxury of thinking that it happened in 1961… Few knew how the Soviet military and specialists provoked their Albanian counterparts and also, few had the idea of how brave and clarity in judgment was then required by the Albanian military. After all, it was the first time that the masses, through a film, could have a visual contact with the power of the Soviet Union and better understand to what terrible limits little Albania had dared! It is not to brag that we remained more Stalinist than the Soviets and Nikita Khrushchev, but at least, in the film, especially when we rewatch it today, we also find a satisfactory level of citizenship by observing the life of Arben Struga, Besnik or Tirana of that time. We only had 17 years of coming from feudalism and war together, but we are dealing with a satisfactory level of citizenship, which we are looking for today and we often lack! It is not something to brag about that the people, with a word from Enver or the Party, were ready to take up arms, like Belul Gjenomadhi in the movie or the mountaineer in the novel, but of course it was about a war that threatened Albania and the people reflected in the labi and mountaineer was conscious, while today… At the end of the film, it was what it was, communist or people's army, we were proud of our military strength, but today … Regarding the reality of that time, problems and any other curiosity. Continues with the second part . Collected, prepared the material, Arian Muraj