The Line (Armenian title:Կյանք ու կռիվ, or Kyanq u Kriv (translating to "Life and Struggle" in English)) is a 2016 war movie from Armenia involving the Nagorno-Karabakh war of the early 1990's between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The film takes place in 1991 and centers around a fearful young man named Tigran, who after finally losing the girl he loved in a Love Triangle due to not being able to tell her how he felt, enlists in the Armenian army to fight in Nagorno-Karabakh. While fighting he encounters Armen, who is in love with Tigran's deaf sister Sophie, and the two become friends. The film follows their journey, as Tigran finally learns to face his fears
A sequel, The Line 2: 25 Years Later was released the next year, chronicling what the characters are going through in more modern times.
The film was uploaded onto Youtube by the studio that produced it, Sharm Holding, with English subtitles, and can be seen here.
Tropes
- A Father to His Men: Suren, the oldest man in Tigran's unit, who often gives advice to the others.
- Cannot Spit It Out: Tigran loses out on his love triangle because he was too afraid to confess his love to Anna. By the time he does, Anna has just had her baby baptized with the other man.
- Code Name: Black Fox, the illusive mercenary commander for the Azeri side who always seems to know the next move of Tigran's brigade, and later takes several Armenian women hostage in a church to ensure his escape.
- Creepy Souvenir: Black Fox collects the ears of Armenian soldiers he's killed, as he's paid by how many human ears he can produce; this was a Real Life practice by the Azeris during the war.
- Cunning Linguist: Tigran can speak four languages. Tofik and Vartan can both speak Turkish. So when it is revealed that someone in the brigade is leaking information to the Azeris, the suspect is one of these three.
- Love Triangle: A rare case of the main character losing out.
- The Hero Dies: Tigran ends up dying after making a valiant last stand at the Battle of Shushi in 1992.
- The Mole: Vartan, who is leaking information to the Azeris to protect his friend on the Azeri side, the aforementioned Black Fox, who he grew up with in a Turkish orphanage.
- Parental Abandonment: Tigran and Sophie's parents died in the 1988 Leninakan earthquake, which also left Sophie deaf and mute. Thus they moved to Yerevan to live with their grandfather.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Tigran's grandfather gives him a fiery speech about how his fear of confessing his love to Anna, leaving the country to study abroad and/or fighting in the war have made him a nobody. This prompts Tigran to join the army.
- Period Piece: Even outside of the war scenes, we get some very authentic scenes of everyday life in newly independent early 90's Armenia in the scenes taking place in Yerevan, with all of the Soviet symbols still in the background, as well as period-appropriate televisions and VHS camcorders.
- Winter Warfare: One battle takes place in the snowy mountains, with Armenian forces stationed in trenches while the invading Azeris attack. Armen sarcastically wonders where the Azeris were the day before, when the weather was perfect for a battle.
