In his remote land (Abkhazia), an elderly Ivo (Lembit Ulfsak/The Estonian) is making wooden boxes to pack the mandarins that his friend Margus (Elmo Nüganen) has planted and is about to harvest.
He is eager to earn the money. Enough money to get out of there and return to his native Estonia, where all his friends, family and other members of the community had to return due to the violence that broke out in his current hometown of Abkhazia where they moved in search of a better life.
A pacifist drama, in its geographical and historical context (the collapse of the Soviet Union), which made land and race independent factors, and a sense of humanity struggled to prevail.
[Source](https://www.fotogramas.es/peliculas-criticas/a4189463/mandarinas/)
The film reveals ethical and moral conflicts in a story in which values such as integrity, consistency and honour mutate until unique values related to race, land and religion are convincingly transcended.
Despite its slow pace, the film's depth does not diminish and builds the underlying conflict of coexistence between protected enemies, Chechens and Georgians, involving Ivo and Magnus, in everyday life.
The film's story highlights a sense of humanity, from the script and acting, as well as the beautiful photography and music, which accompanies the intimacy of the story that questions the right to kill one's fellow man in war, defended by Ivo, as a uniting factor between enemies is gradually revealed, until it becomes friendship.
A bittersweet and realistic ending, like its title (Tangerine), but full of respect for life and the hope that brotherhood will prevail, full of thematic and aesthetic content led by a director who died prematurely in 2019, when his filmography of almost 10 films was already consolidated.
[Source](https://www.fotogramas.es/peliculas-criticas/a4189463/mandarinas/)
