Writer & Director
Sergey Loznitsa
(MY JOY, A GENTLE CREATURE)

This year’s Un Certain Regard – Directing Prize Winner at Cannes is a work of fiction that couldn’t be closer to being a true story than it is. In fact, I’d even go as far to say that the details of the deplorable events chronicled in DONBASS are more genuine to the real-life issue it is depicting than many dramatised true stories produced by Hollywood.

For those of you who may not know (like myself prior to watching), DONBASS refers to a specific region that is situated on the eastern side of Ukraine. In this part of the world, fighting goes on between the Ukrainian regular army, supported by volunteers, and separatist gangs, supported by Russian paramilitary troops known as Donetsk People’s Republic. Members of these separatist gangs use manipulation and propaganda to instil fear and hatred, and to incite violence. They’ve even been designated a terrorist group by Ukraine. This armed conflict is referred to as a hybrid war where robberies and murder affect society on a daily basis. Via thirteen separate segments, DONBASS adopts a ground-zero approach to explore this concurrent issue from the perspectives of several individual and ordinary citizens living in the occupied territory.

As you may have fathomed from reading so far and by not seeing names of listed actors above, there is no start to end narrative or main characters present in DONBASS. Rather, its individual episodes are linked through some of its characters who appear in more than one of its segments. Perhaps being able to recognise these faces is more achievable for some than it is for others. This was something that I had struggled with. I also wasn’t able to comprehend the unorthodox flow and structure of DONBASS as soon as I would have liked. The particular methodology of filmmaking used here is more foreign to how most feature films play out, yet DONBASS cannot be categorised as a documentary feature either. Although a challenging experience in its various ways, this is a film that earns profound appreciation by the end. By no means are my words intended to sound like criticism of what is a finely produced picture that has boldly portrayed this real-life issue in quite a raw and powerful manner.

Ukraine’s official submission for Best Foreign Language Film of the 2019 Academy Awards is indeed a strong and worthy entry for not only February’s awards season but also to the big screen today.

4 stars 

Viewer Discretion
M (Mature themes, violence and coarse language)

Trailer
DONBASS

Moviedoc thanks The Backlot Films and Annette Smith for the opportunity to the watch and review this film.

Review by Leigh for Moviedoc
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