Wri/Dir: Dmytro Hreshko | Doc 2025. 77′
A nature documentary exploring the catastrophic effects of war on Ukraine’s vast rural landscapes opens with tranquil images of the countryside filmed by aerial drones.
Spring brings fresh verdancy to the woods where wild boars are mating, cranes are flying and wild horses and deer frolic seemingly unperturbed by the distant sounds of renewed combat. Nature must go on Descending drones capture smoke rising from incursions on cities in the distance and gradually the vast devastation comes into view as the tanks roll and soldiers march through villages razed to the ground by bomb blasts. All this accompanied by ghostly silence and an sinister occasional electronic soundscape. At ground level a vulture picks over a dead soldier as distant voices ring out amongst the gunfire.
A white coated figure scoops sand from a pile amid the detritus of spend shell cartridges. A cat is unsure of what to make of it all as it wanders through a meadow amidst the wreckage of dilapidated houses and rusty tanks, a volunteer offering food and reassurance. Once again animals are the bewildered victims of man’s misdemeanours.
There’s an almost architectural form and macabre sense of rhythm to aerial these scenes of destruction etched on the landscape like pock marks of a terrible disease. Upsetting images of skeletons of long dead cattle, random dogs and foxes stopped in their tracks. Fish gasping desperately to ward off imminent death in drying up riverbeds make for difficult viewing as the camera swirls around them like a ghoulish voyeur.
Other segments follow specialist teams detecting and dismantling unexploded mines. These khaki shells nestling amongst the frothy lace of cow parsley make for a horrifying juxtaposition, like the eerie peace before a storm. A seashore where children may have once frolicked in the sunshine is now a graveyard for a seal rotting amidst the detritus of broken wood. And there are human tragedies too: the remains of a body has found a peaceful bosky burial place on a grassy forest pathway surrounded by trees.
Made all the more effective by its total lack of dialogue or inter-titles Divia, written, directed and photographed by Dmytro Hreshko, is a sobering poetic study of the pity of war wreaked on innocent flora and fauna. ‘The poetry is in the pity’ as Wilfred Ow once wrote. And it goes on. @MeredithTaylor.
KARLOVY VARY FILM FESTIVAL 2025 | Crystal Globe Competition 2025