Leaving Afghanistan (Russian: Братство, "Brotherhood") is a 2019 semi-biographical Russian war film directed by Pavel Lungin and co-written with his son, Alexander Lungin. It is partially based on the memoirs of Nikolai Kovalyov, the former head of the FSB who served in Afghanistan as a KGB officer.
The movie is set in the last weeks of the Soviet war in Afghanistan. The 108th Motor Rifle Division is one of the last remaining Soviet units in the country. The path of their impending withdrawal will take them through the Salang Pass: a narrow, perilous mountain trail stalked by the Afghan Mujahideen. KGB colonel Dmitrich and his partner Volodya are tasked with finding a way for the remaining Soviet forces to make it safely through the final, most dangerous part of their withdrawal. The stakes only grow higher when Soviet Air Force pilot Sasha, the son of General Vasilyev, is shot down and taken prisoner by enemy fighters. The Soviet soldiers and operatives on the frontline must now find a way to secure their passage while dealing with the increasingly destructive results of the general's search for his son.
This film provides examples of:
- Affably Evil: For a given value of "evil". Engineer Hashem is a polite, soft-spoken man who treats his captives reasonably (or at least better than his Dragon Sardar does) and is willing to negotiate with the Soviets to minimise the bloodshed on both sides. In fact, the movie never goes of its way to paint him as a villain, other than for the fact that he is opposed to the Soviet protagonists.
- Bald of Evil: Sardar is a short-tempered Mujahideen commander who treats his prisoners roughly and tortures and beheads one of his own men for working with the Soviets behind his back.
- Battle Trophy: Greek takes a tape player from a Mujahid he killed in his first battle.
- Chromosome Casting: All named characters in the movie are male.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: Majed, an Afghan KHAD officer allied to the protagonists, excuses himself from his son's birthday party to beat some vital information out of a captured Mujahid in his backyard.
- Colonel Kilgore: Dmitrich paints himself as this in a private conversation with Volodya, explaining how he got himself sent to Afghanistan out of his urge to feel like he's doing something.
- Corrupt Quartermaster: Ensign Abdusalamov tries to sell off an automatic grenade launcher to the Mujahideen, and is implied to defraud Afghan merchants for imported electronics to sell to his fellow Soviets.
- Cunning Linguist: Volodya speaks Persian and translates for the rest of the Soviet characters. Many of the Afghans also speak passable to fluent Russian, as the result of a decade of Soviet occupation.
- Death by Materialism:
- Narrowly averted with Abdusalamov, whom we see strong-arming Jamal, an Afghan merchant, into selling him an underpriced tape recorder in his first appearance. Later on, Jamal lures him into a trap to be abducted by the Mujahideen, who proceed to hold him for ransom. It's implied that the deed was payback for Abdusalamov's previous behaviour.
- Played straight with Zmaray, a low-level Mujahideen commander under Sardar who offers to let the Soviets pass unmolested through his territory for a tidy sum of cash. Once he gets found out, Sardar wastes no time beating him half to death, slitting his throat and sending his head to the Soviets for good measure.
- Death Course: The Salang Pass, north of Kabul, was the main overland route that delivered Soviet troops and supplies throughout the war. It's also prime ground for Mujahideen ambushes, as shown by an annihilated food convoy early in the film. The Soviets spend most of the movie trying to figure out a way to withdraw through the pass without being wiped out by the waiting enemy fighters.
- Death from Above: Averted with Soviet pilot Sasha, who is introduced to us by having his Su-22 attack jet shot down by a Stinger missile. Played straight later on with the Mi-8 gunships that his father sends to destroy the Mujahideen base in revenge.
- Decapitation Presentation: Sardar has Zmaray's severed head delivered to General Vasilyev after executing him for working with the Soviets.
- The Dragon: Sardar is this to Engineer Hashem.
- Ensign Newbie: Greek is a young Soviet lieutenant, arriving for the first time in Afghanistan just as the rest of the army is pulling out.
- Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep":
- Greek gets his nickname from his background in Greco-Roman wrestling.
- Sardar means "chief" in Persian.
- Bacha, the name that Sasha calls the young boy from Sardar's village, is simply the Persian word for "boy".
- General Ripper: If Vasilyev wasn't this at the beginning of the movie, then he's certainly one by the end.
- Going Native: One of Hashem's men turns out to be a Soviet soldier named Vitya, who converted to Islam and joined the Mujahideen after being captured.
- Go-Karting with Bowser: The main driving force in the story. The Soviets' days in Afghanistan are numbered, and nobody wants to be the last person to die in a pointless war. As a result, both sides have no shortage of people willing to make deals with one another, whether for material gains or just to avoid having to fight their way out of the war.
- Gratuitous English: Sardar sarcastically greets the just-landed Sasha with "How are you? I'm very glad to see you" before punching him out cold. Later, it's revealed that he learned English while training to use the Stinger missile under his American handlers.
- The Gunfighter Wannabe: Bacha takes Sasha's pistol near the beginning of the movie and proceeds to become this for the rest of it.
- Majored in Western Hypocrisy: Eastern Bloc variation. Engineer Hashem studied hydrology in Minsk before returning home to Afghanistan to become a Mujahideen commander.
- This also turns out to be the case for Uzbek, who spent years studying in Moscow and yet ends up selling out his KGB colleagues to the rebels for a cash reward.
- Majorly Awesome: Subverted with Major Kharlamov. He appears at first to be a tough, no-nonsense battlefield commander… until he forces one of the newbie privates under Greek's command to gun down a surrendered enemy fighter.
- Mugging the Monster: A pair of towering GRU Spetsnaz scouts shake down Greek's men for merchandise while they're browsing an Afghan shop, and challenge him to a round of fisticuffs when he tries to interfere. Unluckily for them, Greek is a trained Greco-Roman wrestler.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed:
- Dmitrich is based on Nikolai Kovalyov himself, who was involved in the movie's production but passed away before the premiere.
- Engineer Hashem is transparently based on Mujahideen commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, the leader of an ethnic Tajik faction who came from an engineering background, controlled the Salang Pass during the war and cut deals with Soviet forces on numerous occasions in order to better focus on fighting off rival factions. The real Massoud is name-dropped on a TV news broadcast at one point.
- Papa Bear: Deconstructed with General Vasilyev. His quest to rescue his son Sasha from the Mujahideen leads to a lot of reckless bloodshed on both sides until Dmitrich and Volodya manage to secure his release through negotiation.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Tarek, an Afghan Communist Party official who follows Vasilyev around, is a Pashtun who hates the local Tajiks inhabiting the Parwan province, to the point of recommending that the Soviets launch an indiscriminate bombardment on the surrounding villages to cover their withdrawal.
- Poor Communication Kills: Once the KGB secures a deal to ransom Sasha and Abdusalamov, Sardar's men take them to a river to wash themselves in preparation for the exchange. The lack of communication from their guards (and the fresh memory of Sardar's cold-blooded execution of Zmaray) pushes Sasha to escape by floating down the river, leading to his death when he runs into a pistol-armed Bacha downstream.
- This is made worse by the revelation that one of their guards is a Russian who had defected to the Mujahideen, and was perfectly capable of communicating with them if only he'd chosen to. When the same guard is assigned to watch over volunteer hostages Volodya and Greek later, he makes sure to make his identity clear from the get-go.
- Race-Name Basis: Uzbek is an Afghan of Uzbek ethnicity. As he mainly speaks Russian on-screen and the Soviet Union had its own (much larger) Uzbek population, it can be easy to mistake him for a Soviet Uzbek at first.
- Revealing Cover-Up: As part of his deal with the Soviets, Zmaray blows up several trucks filled with mannequins in Soviet uniforms to give the impression that he's dutifully attacking their convoys in his section of the pass. One of the mannequins ends up making it to Sardar's village, where Bacha uses it for target practice with his pistol before the Mujahideen commander figures out what happened.
- Revenge Before Reason: A somewhat ambiguous example. The Soviets finally managed to strike a deal with Hashem, allowing them safe passage through the pass with the condition that Volodya and Greek stay behind as hostages. The withdrawal goes forward as planned, the Mujahideen assure the two hostages that they'll be free to go in a few hours… and out of nowhere, Soviet aircraft and artillery start bombarding the village they're in without regard for their safety, on the order of Vasilyev, emotionally broken by the loss of his son. When Dmitrich confronts him about it later, he snaps and insists that he was Just Following Orders, though his response to Sasha's death earlier leaves little doubt on his actual motivation.
- Sanity Slippage:
- By the time Abdusalamov runs into Sasha in captivity, he's been reduced to a gaunt, depressed husk, though still capable of showing flashes of lucidity.
- We later see this happen in real time with General Vasilyev after he receives news of Sasha's death.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: After much bloodshed on both sides, the Soviets finally manage to secure Sasha and Abdusalamov's release from the Mujahideen. Sardar's men take them to a river to bathe… at which point Sasha, who hasn't been informed about the deal, tries to escape by floating down the river. Once he lands on a shore downstream, he's shot dead by Bacha, rendering the deal half-moot. And not only that, his death drives his father to order an airstrike on Hashem's base despite both sides' agreement on a bloodless Soviet withdrawal.
- Shout-Out: Dmitrich and Volodya set up a meeting with Sardar by arranging a screening of White Sun of the Desert for the local Afghan villagers.
- Soundtrack Dissonance: The storming of an Afghan village by Kharlamov's motor rifle platoon is set to a mournful alt-rock track by contemporary Soviet band Grazhdanskaya Oborona.
- State Sec: Dmitrich and Volodya are KGB officers. Majed and Uzbek are from their Afghan counterpart, the KHAD.
- Take Me Instead: Volodya and Greek volunteer as hostages for the Mujahideen to ensure that the Soviet forces won't attack them during their withdrawal.
- Tanks, but No Tanks: In one scene, a row of T-90 tanks are shown parked in a Soviet military base. The T-90 series only entered Russian service after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
- Those Two Guys: Dmitrich and Volodya can come across as this, as the movie is delivered as more of an ensemble piece rather than strictly focused on them as protagonists. Their background as experienced KGB officers also make them appear more worldly than the naive conscripts making up the Army's ranks.
- Uncertain Doom: It's left ambiguous whether any of the Mujahideen survives the Soviet airstrike at the end.
- Wake Up Fighting: A midnight rainstorm sends a piece of laundry flying into Volodya's window, causing him to snap awake and empty his AK's magazine at the offending garment.
