2018 ‘Донбас’ Directed by Sergei Loznitsa
In the historic Donbass region of eastern Ukraine, despite the cruel war that has been raging since 2014 between the self-proclaimed People's Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk and the Ukrainian government, people try to survive in the rotten heart of chaos, where violence disguises itself as peace, propaganda becomes univocal truth and hatred reigns in the name of love.
Tamara Yatsenko Iryna Zayarmiuk Hryhoriy Masliuk Olesia Zhurakivska Liudmyla Smorodina Boris Kamorzin Mikhail Voloshin Yevhen Chepurniak Ihor Kyrylchatenko Vladyslav Simanko Oleksii Beldei Yaroslav Bezkorovainyi Olena Khyzhna Arsen Bosenko Thorsten Merten Oleksandr Techynskyi Volodymyr Lubovsky Sergei Russkin Petro Panchuk Daniil Makarov Irina Plesnyaeva Halyna Kornieieva Zanna Lubgane Vadym Dubovsky Valeriu Andriuță Serhii Smeian Alexander Zamuraev Heorhiy Deliev Valeriy Antonyuk Show All…
Marc van Warmerdam Heino Deckert Jacques Bidou Marianne Dumoulin Peter Warnier Oana Iancu Denys Ivanov Cristian Nicolescu
Arthouse Traffic Graniet Film ma.ja.de. Fiction Wild At Art Digital Cube JBA Production Atoms & Void
DONBASS ドンバス
Donbass is a poignant and painful portrait of the conflict in Eastern Ukraine that has its roots in a complex past and an extremely turbulent recent history. With a gaze that at times borders on documentary, Sergei Loznitsa shows without concessions the vivid image of a society completely devastated by war, corruption, misery, media manipulation and propaganda. Without following a specific narrative thread, the director presents a series of appalling episodes that provoke rage and impotence, in which we observe the dehumanization, violence, impunity and division that are experienced every day in the province of Donetsk. The line between reality and fiction fades in this grotesque, uncomfortable and pessimistic work; Donbass is an unequivocal and legitimate positioning on the part of Loznitsa that reveals part of the worst of human nature, something that comes to light when our spirit is crushed by constant exposure to violence and degradation.
Dec 2022 update: given continuous popularity of this review (and Loznits’s continued relevance as the most important voice in cinema reflecting on the unending disaster that is post war history of Soviet countries) i just want to add smth: fuck Putin and everybody supporting the war against Ukraine
few years back Slavoj Zizek penned an essay in American Affairs about processing trauma through humor, and there was this passage:
"Should we then be surprised at one of the jokes from Sarajevo, when the city was under siege (and, due to Serbian bombing, the supply of gas was often cut off)? “What’s the difference between Auschwitz and Sarajevo? In Auschwitz, they at least never run out of gas.” Or what about…
”When I wrote the script and I started showing it around to colleagues, to funders, they were all really shocked by the text, how strong it is. They said, my god, if this is only how it is written, one can only imagine how it will look on the screen.”
Writer and director Sergei Loznitsa takes aim, and that’s putting it mildly, at the still ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia in Donbass, one of the regions central to the fighting. The movie is presented as thirteen vignettes, with one often leading to the other. Loznitsa freely admits to stealing the structure of Luis Buñuel’s The Phantom of Liberty, although that movie built absurdity on top of absurdity. I suppose…
8.5 /10
"It's not robbery, it's expropriation."
I'm not even going to pretend to understand the political intricacies of the Ukraine war, but I don't think that affected my unexpectedly really enjoying the darkness of the blackest humor, the construction of the movie, & the unforeseen emotive reactions experienced to the, at times, ruthless & unflinching human behaviour (& consequence) during this war.
To my unknowing ear, both the Ukrainian & Russian languages, particularly the speech patterns, seem perfect for bombastically highlighting droll corruption, appalling spin & menacing jokes.
That wedding scene was so magnificently grotesque.
Cheapo Tuesday @ Lido - 1 of 2 people.
Absurdities of war can be horrible and it can be somewhat comical, by the halfway point you're already numb to it though. This is a film thats very hard to pay attention to.
Film #14 of 30
Ukraine
Donbass is a series of 13 vignettes, each with a slightly different tone or subject; set in various locations, such as an undersupplied maternity ward or depicting what you might call diplomacy and occasionally, the harsh reality of the war on the ground. Some segments are more resonant than others. An MP getting shit poured on his head is likely to remain in the memory, for instance. Quite cathartic too, I have to say.
This portmanteau approach does manage to keep the movie relatively urgent, in spite of its lengthy run time it doesn’t wane too much. Also, I should say that the timing of me watching this was relatively…
Película ucraniana presentada oficialmente en diversos festivales internacionales y enviada a los Oscars como representante de su país. Ganado el premio a mejor película en el Festival de Sevilla y recibiendo elogios de números críticos y cinéfilos. Es decir, mal empezamos.
No es de extrañar, que con estos antecedentes, se sepa de antemano a lo que uno se va a enfrentar: un film prácticamente propagandístico que intente poner del lado del gobierno ucraniano a la audiencia occidental. De primeras esto no tiene por que ser negativo, al fin al cabo, toda expresión artística no deja de reflejar ciertos interés ideológicos o reflexiones políticas más o menos disimuladas.
Pero lo que hace Loznitsa es sonrojante. El realizador huye del formato tradicional…
A breathtakingly cynical portrait of corruption at every level, Donbass sacrifices clear identification figures or a straightforward narrative in favor of soul-crushing scope. Unfolding almost like a Roy Andersson film, this series of loosely connected vignettes paints a despairing look at the Ukrainian occupation. Religion, the military, justice, the media, history… no institution is safe from moral decay here. A directorial feat comprised almost entirely of scenes involving large groups of people, the film feels hopeless in its outlook on the country’s state of affairs. Nowhere is this more masterfully expressed than in the film’s great final shot, which depicts one layer of corruption after another as the truth itself gets rehearsed, recast, and staged like a play for a public that has lost all sight of reality.
начало и конец просто шедевральны. как в этих двух сценах лозница показал российскую пропаганду, а уже во всех остальных эпизодах жертв этой пропаганды, хотя опять же, если это правда и было действительно, а не выдумано самим режиссером. очень страшный фильм, но и смешных моментов достаточно, что не может не радовать, смешных в том плане, насколько это абсурдно, как например в эпизоде где у чела машину забрали, а потом такие: "мы же тебя от фашистов защищаем, нам это что на велосипедах делать?" или "- а что это у вас тут происходит? - война у нас блять происходит" ну или же наверное самую абсурдную сцену, где они не знали кто их командир и вообще за что и за кого они сражаются, напоминающую…
Makes a point effectively, if brutally enough, and then continues to bang away like an angry man on a piano, hitting variations on the same notes over and over through a collection of tableaux featuring attempts at making some semblance of normal life during the war in Donbass between Ukranian and separatist forces - occasionally striking results (my favorite was the guy who showed up at an army camp to get his car back after being told it was being used by the military, only to end up in a roomful of men pacing on phones, imagery that did feel up there with Bunuel or say, Andersson, but too many bits either ended abruptly or just petered out, wrapping up…
When war is called peace, when propaganda is uttered as truth, when hatred is declared to be love, then life itself begins to resemble death.
