Grey Bees, the feature debut of director Dmytro Moiseiev, is a laconic and minimal affair. And for good reason: it is set in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine in January 2022, in the “grey zone” between territories controlled by the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists, where existence has become stripped back to its very basics for the few residents who remain there in isolation.
The absence of noisy spectacle and aggressive theatrics is rare for a film about war, and opens the way for a tone that is both droll and reflective, as questions of purpose, belonging and allegiance come into sharp focus for those now scrabbling to subsist in a place deemed neither here nor there. Based on the critically praised 2018 novel of the same name by Andriy Kurkov, and distilled into a more sedentary, ruminative tale from the book’s rollicking odyssey, the film screens in the Tiger Competition at the Rotterdam International Film Festival. Its understatement may limit broad appeal, but its sage charm and tender heart should easily find its audience, and ample festival slots.
Serhii (Viktor Zdanov) is the only beekeeper left in his village. In fact, now that the war is escalating, he is the only person left there at all, apart from Pashka (Volodymyr Yamnenko), a frenemy from his schooldays. The two share a bickering and begrudging camaraderie, for lack of other people around, when minor emergencies such as blown out windows crop up, or when someone is needed to share the miraculous treasure of a bottle of vodka that has been dug up in a backyard. They are men of few words, but established actors Zdanov and Yamnenko are adept at conveying a lot through a mere look or a gesture. There is no electricity in Serhii’s house to power lights, let alone television with its partisan news bulletins. As he bakes with dough from the scant food stocks, or sits by the wood-burner in evenings lit just by candles, his days pass slowly and uneventfully, in solitude with few remnants of community. But the quiet is preferable to unexpected company in this place of lawless opportunism and low-humming, constant threat, where the sound of a car on the road or a knock at the door is enough to set him instantly on edge. Explosions and blasts of gunfire from not so far away break through the silence. And when a corpse appears one day, shot by a sniper and visible in the distance through the kitchen window, Serhii must decide if it is worth the risk to venture over under cover of night to bury it.
Serhii has stayed in the village out of duty, to care for his bees. But he also feels, despite the precarious insecurity of daily life, that there is nowhere else that he belongs. In conversations with a Ukrainian soldier who stops by, he describes a gnawing sense of neglect that the Donbass was largely forgotten and war left to simmer by power players in Kyiv, when it was not being used as a bargaining chip, or its blue-collar workers looked down upon as backward. In this, he feels more affinity with Pashka, who worked in the mines since childhood and feels little agency over his fate, than the incoming troops from the capital, despite Pashka’s separatist affiliations. Serhii tries to keep his head down, and live a simple, apolitical existence (soldiers are referred to just as “them,” regardless of stripe) that has no involvement in the surrounding fighting. But he begins to realise that nothing is neutral, and that being part of the world, as darkness closes in, compels him to take a stance. D.O.P Vadym Ilkov captures the sparse beauty of the cold, snow-covered landscape, creating a sense of place that beguiles even as it lies emptied out, boobytrapped and unforgiving — a home that is singularly home, no matter how close the advancing threat of occupation hangs over it.
Director: Dmytro Moiseiev
Screenwriter: Andriy Kurkov
Cast: Viktor Zdanov, Volodymyr Yamnenk
Producer: Ivanna Diadiura
Cinematographer: Vadym Ilkov
Editor: Oleksii Shamin
Production design: Vladlen Odududenko
Sound design: Artem Mostovyi
Music: Andrii Ponomarov
Production company: Idas International Film LLC (Ukraine)
Sales: Idas International Film LLC (Ukraine)
Festival: Rotterdam (Tiger Competition)
In Ukrainian
100 minutes
