{"id":906,"date":"2023-09-20T17:11:33","date_gmt":"2023-09-20T17:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kinotabs.com\/?p=906"},"modified":"2023-09-20T19:26:56","modified_gmt":"2023-09-20T19:26:56","slug":"reviews-filming-the-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kinotabs.com\/en\/reviews-filming-the-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Filming the War: The Art of Mapping the Routes Politically"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Reflections on the Russian-Ukrainian war in Ukrainian cinema. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The article was commissioned by Kino Raksti and was first published on February 24, 2023. The origial text in Latvian is available at the link<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By and large, little has changed in the general aesthetic principles of visual art since Michelangelo noted that in order to create a sculpture, one needs take a block of marble and cut away all superfluous things. Let\u2019s jump almost half a thousand years ahead, in our modern and completely different world \u2013 and now, in contemporary discussions about the nature of cinema, we find the refrain: \u201cTo make something visible one must leave something out. Visual production is always a more or less conscious process of reduction, which is never merely or strictly technical\u201d[1]<\/sup><\/a>. The author of these words \u2013 the German director, curator and publicist Florian Schneider \u2013 calls to protect reality from the perversions that appear when trying to imitate broad surfaces, instead of focusing on their structures and re-producing them in all the complexity of contexts. This danger of perversions is especially acute when we are talking about movies about war. After all, an author of such a film also takes responsibility for mapping a \u201croute\u201d through the war, determining its sides, reasons, chronology and, finally, the context. So, it becomes important to define not only what gets on the screen, but also what stays offstage, what is cut off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

February 24, 2023 marked one year since Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. A year ago, Russian missiles attacked Kyiv, Kharkiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, and other cities almost throughout the territory of Ukraine, destroying primarily civilian infrastructure. A week before, on February 16, 2022 Reuters broadcasted a live stream directly from Kyiv\u2019s Independence Square in anticipation of the beginning of the full-scale war \u2013 which caused a number of jokes in the Ukrainian segment of the Internet. Either way, this full-scale invasion has a clear date and its visual signifiers \u2013 many videos that have already become almost iconic signs of this phase of the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2014, when Russian military forces occupied Crimea, no one was ready for the word \u201cwar\u201d. Footages from protests with Ukrainian flags in Simferopol faded away among some na\u0457ve general uncertainty in the country that had just got rid of the corrupt and brutal regime of Yanukovych. The only visual signifier to the fact that the Russian-Ukrainian war began in February 2014 was the Russian medal \u201cFor the Return of Crimea\u201d, dated by the 20th<\/sup> of February, which is perhaps the first public evidence of purposeful military aggression and violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine by Russia. Already a year later, in 2015, Putin himself admits the military intervention in Ukraine and the military seizure of the Crimean Peninsula in the propaganda TV film distributed by the state channel \u201cRussia-1\u201d \u2013 \u201cCrimea. The Way Home<\/em>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In Ukrainian cinema, 2014 brings the beginning of a new wave \u2013 brings the source for new thematic focuses, brings new names of filmmakers and gives an impulse for audience\u2018s interest in national cinema. Due to the political and military upheavals, the basic questions like \u201cwho are we?\u201d, \u201cwhat is our history?\u201d, \u201cwhat unites us?\u201d have become acutely important \u2013 the stories that the directors have brought to the big screens over the past nine years expressed and reflected experience and feelings of the majority of viewers both in Kyiv and Odesa, in Lviv and Kharkiv. And, of course, it is natural that many of these films were devoted to the war \u2013 its various episodes, which together form a kind of cinematic route through the history of the Russian-Ukrainian war: from its beginning in Crimea in 2014 to its modern phase, which continues nowadays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, Odesa International Film Festival held the premiere of the feature film U311 \u201cCherkasy\u201d <\/em><\/strong>(dir. Tymur Yashchenko, editor Viktor Onysko, Ukraine, Poland, 2019, 102 min.) that depicts the true events in Donuzlav Bay in March 2014 during the military seizure of Crimea by Russia. This festival version of the film was edited by Viktor Onysko[2]<\/a>. The events of this film mainly take place on the board of a sea minesweeper called \u2018Cherkasy\u2019, which, together with 12 other Ukrainian ships, had been completely blocked by Russian military forces in Donuzlav Bay on the western coast of Crimea in March 2014. And it was \u2018Cherkasy\u2019 that resisted the Russian occupiers for the longest time, despite the fact that they actually only had water in their arsenal. In addition to the truly impressive story of the strong spirit of the ship\u2019s crew, this film touches on several very painful factors of the context of that time. The military forces of Ukraine at that time were soaked with the Soviet model of hierarchical relations, which gave rise to bullying and hazing (didivshchyna). The characters of the film \u2013 young guys who entered the military service on \u2018Cherkasy\u2019 as sailors \u2013 suffer from an exploitative attitude and generally unacceptable conditions for service and life. All this, alongside literally rotten food and the figure of an arrogant cook, who had been eventually thrown out overside while the ship\u2019s crew was establishing a new order on the board, creates on the screen persistent references to perhaps the most famous propagandistic naval action film of the Soviet Union, Battleship Potemkin<\/em> by Sergei Eisenstein.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Still from the film U311 \u201cCherkasy\u201d<\/em><\/strong>, dir. Tymur Yashchenko, editor Viktor Onysko, Ukraine, Poland, 2019, 102 min.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

However, in contrast to the Soviet cult story about the class struggle, U311 \u201cCherkasy\u201d<\/em> becomes a story of the gaining of subjectivity as such \u2013 of the break with the past of the rotten Ukrainian military system and with the past of the illusion of joint strategic development with the Russian army, of the awareness of the beginning of the war and responsibility for decision-making. Because, under the circumstances when former Russian colleagues turned out to be occupiers, and part of the own team of the ship turned out to be traitors, no orders came from the Kyiv command to the crew of \u2018Cherkasy\u2019. In March 2014, Ukraine did not have a president[3]<\/a>, the army was almost destroyed by previous governments that saw no sense in it, and no one in Kyiv wanted to take responsibility for any orders to the Ukrainian Navy in Crimea. After a number of unsuccessful attempts to contact the silent headquarters in Kyiv, the commander of \u2018Cherkasy\u2019, captain 1st rank Yuriy Fedash (performed by Roman Semysal) tries to coordinate a joint defense with other ships of the Ukrainian Navy blocked in Donuzlav \u2013 however, it is also unsuccessful, since many other crews have already surrendered, having neither a combat arsenal, nor \u2013 sometimes \u2013 simply a desire to resist[4]<\/a>. In the end, \u2018Cherkasy\u2019, without having either orders from Kyiv or fire support, resisted the Russians with simple jets of water. On March 25, the minesweeper, which remained the last uncaptured Ukrainian ship in Donuzlav, was captured by the Russians who used helicopters and speed boats \u2013 their assault lasted more than two hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The editor of U311 \u201cCherkasy\u201d<\/em> Viktor Onysko is a famous Ukrainian filmmaker. With the beginning of the full-scale invasion in 2022, Viktor joined the Armed Forces of Ukraine \u2013 in particular, he took part in the liberation of Kherson Oblast, it is only a few hundred kilometers from my hometown of Odesa, where I am currently writing this text in 2023. I owe my freedom, in particular, to Viktor \u2013 since the Ukrainian flag flew over Kherson again, the shelling of Odesa has decreased. On December 30, 2022, Viktor died in the battles for Soledar. He left 9-year-old daughter Zakhariya and his wife, film curator Olha Birzul, whose tireless efforts have helped many Ukrainian films to receive their international screenings and financial support. Viktor\u2019s death is a colossal loss for Ukrainian cinema, for friends and colleagues of this family, which no one will ever be able to heal. The strongest Ukrainian cultural potential is being physically killed today \u2013 just as it was a century ago during the colonial oppression conducted by the Russian Empire on Ukrainian lands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like any act of speaking, any story, any film \u2013 even (or more than anything else) a documentary one \u2013 is ultimately a product of the author\u2019s formulation, definition and establishment of cause-and-effect relationships. After all, every even documentary shot, every cut, every character in the frame and every comment are ultimately the result of the author\u2019s choice. Already at this point, it is worth coming to terms with the fact that any film about war is the result of someone\u2019s conscious reduction, that is, someone\u2019s choice: what is important to tell, and what can be left in the shadows. Obviously, this process is always quite political \u2013 and more than ever when it comes to war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This should mean that every even documentary film about the war is not an objective panoramic cast of reality, but rather is someone\u2019s political will to tell one or more of the possible stories about the war, cutting away others. Will to determine the beginning and end of a particular story. The Russian-Ukrainian war has been going on for nine years, and it is the largest war that takes place almost live \u2013 every day a large array of videos and images is being produced, some of which are being reproduced in the media, while others are getting quickly lost in digital archives. The beginning of the full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022 was almost expected by media that aired live streams and by their audiences. However, from which video, from which image does the count of the Russian-Ukrainian war in 2014 begin? From which date? How to build the history of the nine-year war, which has an endless array of videos and images captured by its participants, witnesses and victims, but does not have a conventional visual beginning? In other words, is it possible today to tell about the war in such a way as to simultaneously outline its panorama and reproduce its structure, its chains of contexts \u2013 to simultaneously reproduce its scene and give voices to thousands of its participants?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a certain attempt to find an answer to this question, one of the most large-scale documentaries about the Russian-Ukrainian war, to watch the war (film found on the Internet)<\/em><\/strong> <\/a>(443 cinematographers, Ukraine, 2018, 312 min.) unfolds. In the attribution of this work, it is not without reason that an incredible number of cameramen are given instead of the classic director figure \u2013 since both this figure and the person responsible for editing remain anonymous. This daring documentary experiment, signed by no one, was born and continues to exist on the Internet \u2013 in public access on YouTube, probably without any other screenings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Still from the film to watch the war (film found on the Internet)<\/em><\/strong>, 443 cinematographers, Ukraine, 2018, 312 min.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At least, a curator who would dare to organize the theatrical premiere of this film would first have to puzzle over the negotiating licensing rights for it \u2013 because the film consists of hundreds of amateur recordings that their authors once put on the Internet. Hours of video evidences of the war in eastern Ukraine \u2013 the beginning of which is determined by the amateur video of the seizing of the Slovyansk police office by FSB colonel Strelkov-Girkin\u2019s squad on April 12, 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The shaky camera of someone\u2019s phone searches among the houseplants on the windowsill, looking for the most convenient angle to film the events in the yard of the house directly opposite theirs; off-screen, the worrying voices of camerawoman Valia and her companion are cursing the Russian militants, who use UAZ-bus to tear the security bars out of the windows of the police office, and discuss which city to flee to. On this very night, the National Security and Defense Council of Ukraine will decide on the start of the Anti-Terrorist Operation, which for years to come will become synonymous with a much simpler, shorter, but sharper word \u2013 war. This decision, as well as the explanation of the legal grounds for using such Aesopian word construction, will remain in the shadows and will not be included in the film. Instead, the very scene of the war in all its obviousness and complexity will consist minute by minute of videos of 443 anonymous cameramen-witnesses and participants of the war \u2013 civilians, Ukrainian soldiers, volunteers, Russian mercenaries, collaborators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alongside the difficulties of negotiating licensing rights for theatrical screenings, such a found-footage wartime stained-glass film has the much more difficult challenge of navigating its route through this mass of footages. In simple terms, how to structure all these testimonies and what ideological position will be eventually crystallized from this. After all, in a conversation about war, it is impossible to avoid political responsibility for defining the sides of the conflict \u2013 and therefore it is impossible to remain \u2018somewhere in the middle\u2019 or on the sidelines: when a narrator talks about a war, consciously or not, a narrator takes either the side of the whites or the side of the blacks. The very act of talking about a war simply cannot be neutral \u2013 this condition is laid down at the level of language itself, at the level of act of speaking, level of words that we need to choose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the same way, a film about war cannot be depersonalized and \u2018objective\u2019. Clearly understanding this, the author(s) of to watch the war<\/em> add to this five-hour documentary canvas quite modest comments about the inevitability of personal responsibility both for each shot and for the entire story about the war in the film. So, at a certain moment, a title appears on the screen stating: \u201cthe camera is taking part in the events.\u201d On the one hand, each of the 443 cameras has its own trajectory of looking at the war \u2013 for example, when the very opportunity to record events in one or another point of eastern Ukraine becomes determined by the ideological position of a cameraman(woman). On the other hand, the camera itself becomes the symbolic blade that makes the first cut \u2013 cutting off from the depths of reality those episodes that now visualize the war, episodes which are being included in the film, leaving in the shadows many other episodes that have been never recorded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this is all – the first \u2018step\u2019 in creating this documentary film about the war. The following is actually a mapping the route, a building the story from these heterogeneous, sometimes ambiguous testimonies \u2013 the story about those who attack and those who defend themselves. Another title on the screen states: \u201cthree main situations of war: the launch of a projectile, the side view of shelling, the consequences of shelling. it is impossible to combine all three situations in one frame. this requires the editing. editing is a privilege. war videos exist in an unedited space. they are the substrate for television and our fears. who is the author? who is the director? the one who clicks the camera button? the one who launches the projectile? the one who posts videos on the internet? the editing has been going on now for 4 years.\u201d Could the authors of the film have guessed then that those four years are only the equator of the war before Russia starts destroying lives and cities throughout Ukraine?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Still from the film to watch the war (film found on the Internet)<\/em><\/strong>, 443 cinematographers, Ukraine, 2018, 312 min.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In any case, in order to subordinate this many-hour-long \u2018substrate\u2019 to their story about the war, the author(s) not only determine the sequence of video evidences: from the footage of the seizing of the police office in Slovyansk by the Russians in April 2014 at the very beginning of the film, and up to the smoky field landscape with credits that list cities of eastern Ukraine, which by the moment of online-releasing of the film in 2018 were under the Russian occupation, at the very end. Alongside this, in order this sequence of recordings made by amateurs on different sides of the front line was ultimately subordinated to the author\u2019s responsibility for the story, in order the editing as a political decision actually took place, at a certain moment of the film the audio and video tracks split and no longer correspond to each other \u2013 thus depriving all recordings of their original ideological message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cfor all who are dead\u201d \u2013 appears on the screen at the end of this five-hour film experiment. Dead are the main thing that remains in the shadow of this attempt to talk, visualize and watch the war \u2013 an ambitious attempt to build a surface, a panorama of the war scene, while focusing on the structure of its context, on the testimonies recorded by its direct participants and witnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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