Klondike

Saw this back at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival

When I first heard about this at Sundance, I didn't know what to think about it as I have never seen a movie from Ukraine before and this was a weird synopsis. However, after viewing it, it's very clear that Maryna Er Gorbach has a great future of making possible masterpieces of Ukraine cinema. Gorbach offers such an brutal look of the political situation between Ukraine and Russia through the lens of a couple struggling to go on with their days. Throughout the movie, there are many incredible long but realistic takes of characters walking around and speaking which really helped to add the realism and brutal nature of what the characters were facing. All performances were amazing and the characters felt so real as if you are really witnessing them going through this troubles.

The execution is perfectly made as it shows that Gorbach really cares about her craft. Beautiful sound designs and there were some moments that made me feel really uneasy but in a good way. The feeling of uneasy because it was quite brutal and hard to stomach at times. Pacing did drag a little but it wasn't something that ruined my entire experience with this movie.

Rating: A-

The film, for long moments will frame its characters in front of large landscapes, the camera mostly fixed, giving the subjects lots of time to work out their conflicts while in the background ominous situations creep in. This gives a strong sense that talking about problems has its limit, and that time is running out. Our protagonist lets her husband decide her faith, when she knows he lacks understanding and control. She hopes he will provide and secure a future for their forming family, when he only sees a false image of what a man is ; to stand with the ones who subjugate. She is stuck in a standstill, unable to accept the imminent danger facing her.

This story illustrates with righteous confidence the importance of swift and crucial action for self preservation, beginning with recognizing those who want to inflict harm, then moving away towards safety. A beautiful tragedy that builds tension perfectly, and strikes its audience with an unquestionable ending.

.... so intensely in this film of the situation in 2014 in Donbas region. This family does not want to be part of the war but is forced to deal with the situation of factions in their small town, on their farm. The leads are all marvelous in their roles; the screenwriting, direction, cinematography, all outstanding. I saw it just today at the Alameda International Film Festival and someone said -- "can all of our political leaders be made to watch this?" The dedication was to the women of Ukraine and I definitely feel as if this was a women's war film-- contrasting with another film made also in 2022 where there were almost no women to be found.

Klondike captures something that's often missing in films about war, and that is the cruel, unforgiving randomness of it.

In many war movies, there will be build-up to the carnage; lingering shots of dead bodies that add gravity to them. When we open on an unassuming couple in their homestead, there's nothing to prepare us for the blast that sets the film in motion. (As for the deaths, the most striking thing about them is usually how LITTLE gravity they have; how profoundly indifferent the world seems toward them.)

What follows is a movie that's both brutal enough to rival Klimov's Come and See (mainly towards the end) and well-shot and well-staged enough to rival Tarkovsky -- with its misty greens and long, solemn takes of rural, once-Soviet environments. The way the camera slowly but surely creeps forward during some of these lengthy takes (in a way where we initially don't realize there's any movement) also reminded me of 2014's Norte: The End of History.

It is a film that I've anticipated since its Sundance premiere all the way back in January 2022; only now does it get a wide release. Some people assume that it was based on recent events, namely the 2022 invasion of Ukraine that alerted more people to the Russo-Ukranian War than ever, not knowing that the film predates the escalation and that this conflict dates all the way back to 2014 (the events of the film revolve around the attack against Malaysia Airlines flight 17). So, no, this is not the "movie version" of all that stuff you've seen on TikTok.

For the most part, little seems to happen in the movie, yet there is always something to spot in the backgrounds, even in the farthest distance, be it passing war vehicles or groups of Ukrainian civilians wandering mournfully -- the ongoing bedlam is always, on some level, felt. Regardless, the actors we follow are superb, and the music by Zviad Mgebrishvili makes for an effective dirge.

In a perfect world, the "Best International Feature" slot for All Quiet On the Western Front, as good as that movie was, would have instead gone to Klondike.

You know what's going to happen here yet you watch it for the strong character that leads Klondike with her family who are suddenly finding it difficult to exist. There's levity in the proceedings that make you really wonder what is all this for. With excellent performances and haunting visuals, Klondike kept me hooked and made me morose at the same time. The visuals are so stunning you almost believe you are at the Ukraine-Russia border. The worse part is that you dear for your life too. Interestingly, at the IFFK this year all I have seen so far are tragedies.

(Watched at the 2022 International Film Festival of Kerala in Trivandrum.)