Dir: Juri Rechinsky | Austria Doc 93′
48,359 Russians have so far lost their lives since Russia invaded the Ukraine in February 2022. Meanwhile on the other side of the conflict a lonely old woman gathers her things. She’s chosen to stay in her building. Her son leaves her with a final kiss.
English air workers Elizabeth and Jonny, from British Expeditionary Aid and Rescue, are on a mission to care for Ukraine’s ageing and infirm – some are blind, some crippled – and to keep them relatively safe from danger, and identity the dead. They present the new face of the burgeoning aid effort.
Austrian auteur Juri Rechinsky turns his artful camera on the survivors – mostly women with babies and young children. These are the forgotten people. Philosophical and positive the old look on the bright side. Cheering each other up. “I nearly died nine times down the mines. It wasn’t my destiny. Who knows what my fate will be”.
Then there are the volunteers. Bringing up the bodies. A jaw, a skull. The back of a head. A gold ring and a bracelet stuffed into a bag and stuck with a note on the white plastic covering. People with children wait in the station, wondering where to go. This is the messy side of war, if ever there was one clean one. Far away from the front lines. Where is the glory here?.
How can you make an arthouse film about death, mud and broken bodies?. This one manages to see the beauty in the beastly. A burning sunset. An ambulance chasing along to the mortuary in the frosty light of dawn. The camera records the intimate details. It captures the physical effort of carrying dead bodies, forcing them into body bags and slipping those into coffins. Form filling. Endless cataloguing. Finding order in chaos. Old ladies having their hair styled by a coiffeur eager to offer his services. No one needs hairdressers now.
The voyeuristic camera takes us into the mortuary to watch as relatives grief in their jagged sorrow. People kneeling along the roadside to honour the dead. Rechinsky keeps his distance from this grim subject but there is dark humour too, especially for the old ones who take a measured view of war and suffering. Impossible not to shed a tear. @MeredithTaylor
LOCARNO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL 2024 | CRITICS’ WEEK