Making art in wartime Ukraine – The Hollywood Reporter

“Porcelain War”

Provided by Sundance Institute

Watch Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontiev’s visually confident but intellectually unstable documentary porcelain war It’s like listening to a great poet read while someone sitting next to you whispers the actual content of the poem. And the person sitting next to you explaining what the poet is trying to say is also…perversely…a poet!

There’s a lot of beauty inside porcelain war There’s a strong artistry behind it, but I’ve never seen a documentary that uses so many visual metaphors and so little credibility for the audience to understand. It’s both a little surprising and a little insulting. The fact that it won the top prize in the U.S. documentary category at this year’s Sundance Film Festival explains why the film tends to lean more toward the former.

This documentary tells the story of Slava (co-director) and Anya, partners in life and art. He creates porcelain objects such as snails, reptiles, and owls, and she covers their white surfaces with intricate and whimsical drawings. They live in Crimea, surrounded by artists and friends, but when the Russian army attacks, rather than fleeing their homeland, they take refuge from Crimea in Kharkov, a city just 40 miles from the Russian border.

In Kharkov, Anya and Slava continue to create works of art by placing porcelain dolls in the rubble, while Slava is forced to take up arms against the invading Russians. He also serves as a weapons instructor. The artist couple is also accompanied by their energetic dog Frodo, a type of terrier, and “A VERY GOOD DOG.”

He is the third member (fourth if you count Frodo) of their little society of artists. in extreme conditions Their long-time friend Andrei Stefanov is a painter who turned to photography without worrying about his wife and daughters, who fled to Lithuania during the war.

The responsibility of artists to continue to create art in the darkest moments, and art’s ability to add beauty and lightness to that darkness, is just part of the world’s undercurrents. porcelain war.

As the documentary makes clear and reiterates, art is itself an act of rebellion, an act of creation to avoid destruction. It’s hard to dispute this claim, but the directors and Stefanov, the documentary’s chief cinematographer, do a great job of capturing the contrast between the idyllic countryside and the rubble of urban centers left behind by Russian bombing. ing.

The documentary cuts back and forth, often in hard cuts, from activities like mushroom foraging trips in the woods (or Frodo hopping across sun-drenched fields) to the harsher realities of war. Except that both are real, as we see when the porcelain owl is placed on top of the destroyed castle wall, and when Frodo almost runs into a mine on his walk. .

But war – at least from a defensive stance, when what you are defending is your ancestral homeland and something you hold dear – can be called an act of creation, an act of art. Or?this is a complex paper porcelain war I don’t necessarily commit to it, but I dance around.

For the furniture salesmen and dairy farmers that Slava trains, the need to fight back against the Russians is never in doubt. And when the rebellion breaks out anyway, Anya is seen painting one of the bomb-laden drones.

Drones have become an important part of the language of documentary over the past decade, as evidenced by several shots of filmmaking drones filming actual war drones. It’s a conversation where one side is making art and the other is contributing to (albeit just) genocide. porcelain war Instigate without mentioning it directly. Perhaps the filmmakers want to avoid the question of whether they consider this clearly Ukrainian propaganda or just a story.

And if the filmmakers feel comfortable clarifying this topic, they will do so. Because this documentary spells things out very clearly in so many ways. If you, dear reader, hear a documentary about Ukraine in which porcelain is described as “fragile but eternal,” Slava’s voiceover will say, “Ukraine is like porcelain. It is easy to break it, but it is impossible to destroy it.”

everything in it porcelain war It’s a metaphor that includes little Frodo, Slava says of Frodo, “Everyone says he’s kind but courageous,” before adding that Anya is “a little person who embodies the Ukrainian spirit.” Documentaries do this over and over again, planting a seed of insight or emotion or just plain wit, then denying the viewer the chance to take the not-so-great leap forward.

It rivals the work of fellow Sundance Prize winners Angela Patton and Natalie Ray. daughters, porcelain war This suggests that having a co-director who is also the star of the documentary may be good for intimacy, but not necessarily ideal for dramatic clarity. It’s a big deal to expect director Slava Leontiev to agree that perhaps 75 percent of his subject Slava Leontiev’s narration (completely poetic and completely redundant) could be cut. .

My sense is that without that narration, none of the themes of this documentary would be lost or weakened. Marvel at Stefanov’s photographs, be heartbroken by the editor’s tragic juxtapositions, admire the animation that flows from Anya’s tiny drawings, and hold your breath as you watch the harrowing scenes captured in military bodies. That would be much easier. -cam. Or just be transported to the music of the Ukrainian quartet Dachbraha while listening to Frodo’s unsuspecting frolic on the brink of war.