After stirring up the Cannes crowd last year with A Gentle Creature, which told the story of a woman in search of the truth about her husband’s fate in a Russian prison, Sergei Loznitsa returns to Croisette in the Un Certain Regard section with Donbass.
Donbass is an area in Eastern Ukraine. Set in the winter of 2013-14, the film is about an internal conflict between fighting factions: whether they are old-school Communists, separatists or nationalists, predominantly they are criminals and thugs. The setting could be about pretty much any conflict in almost any region. There but for the grace of God go we… If A Gentle Creature was all about a woman searching for truth, then this film is all about men creating lies and fake news. We see pseudo bombings with locals used as extras, we see a bizarre wedding that is more a farce than an act of love, we see the manipulation of words to extract money and raise fear, we see the thievery and trickery of those in power.
There is much in Donbass that has been seen before; the same can be said for most horror films, but that doesn’t mean you don’t leap out of your seat when the assailant strikes. As a car pulls up at a roadblock, there is an expectation that a bomb is about to go off somewhere. Yet the resultant massacre is no less shocking because of this. When a visitor is led down to a labyrinth of underground buildings, inhabited by scared locals living in filthy damp conditions, those images could be from taken from World War II-era air-raid shelters. Loznitsa seems to be showing us that the ugliness of war is universal and timeless.
And it’s not just the ugliness of war. There is an ugliness to humanity here that could make you a misanthrope. The director seems despairing of the human plight and even in comedic moments there is always a certain grotesqueness to the scenes. When an enemy soldier is brought to a civilian street (with ‘I was in an execution squad’ taped to his front), it is clear that his ‘guards’ want to parade him in front of ordinary folk who may or may not want to seek retribution in the form of a lynching. It’s a nasty, hateful scene and shows little possibility for reconciliation or redemption.
The beauty of this film lies in some of its imagery. Cinematographer Oleg Mutu, who worked on 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, has done a remarkable job here, with some truly breathtaking images that create a sort of beauty amongst all the ugliness. Unlike A Gentle Creature, there is no real leading character here. Instead Loznitsa has put together an impressive ensemble cast to help him tell this most depressing tale.
