In a dingy underground cell, a man convicted of a police colonel’s murder is shot dead at point-blank range. It’s 1996, and Ukraine has gained independence after the fall of the Soviet Union, but the death penalty persists as a hangover of those times (the signing of Protocol No 6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, which ended capital punishment, would happen a few months after.) The killing is carried out coolly and efficiently, the corpse is whisked out in a body bag, and the floor hosed down, as if this is all a matter of course. And the discoloured tiles suggest this is not the first prisoner to have shed blood here. This state-sanctioned execution is the core around which Ukrainian director Philip Sotnychenko has built his fragmentary, oblique and impressive film La Palisiada, screening in the Tiger Competition at Rotterdam.
An enigmatic opening prologue set in the present day, with a young generation of Ukrainian artists, culminates in another shocking gunshot. Sotnychenko leaves it to the audience to connect the dots between the film’s many episodes and digressions, refusing to simplify a society that speaks the language of absurdities and redundancies. But the thrust of his mosaic is fiercely clear: Russian colonialism didn’t end with the collapse of the USSR. Its brutal legacy never brought culture to Ukrainians as its propaganda professed, but only fear and trauma.
This is a visually compelling, formally inventive and challenging work that should enjoy wide play in festival slots at the more adventurous arthouse end of the spectrum, especially given its tragic topicality in regard to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and extensive reported war crimes there. (It is a sobering detail, outlined in the press notes, that the execution scene was shot in a prison in Bucha, the Kyiv suburb that has subsequently become a symbol of the terrorisation, torture and unlawful killing of Ukrainian civilians by Russian forces.)
The investigation that precedes the execution falls under the direction of detective Ilhar (Novruz Pashayev) and his friend Oleksandr (Andrii Zhurba), a forensic psychiatrist. The two hardened men share a very particular relationship to the deceased’s widow. Thirty suspects are arrested in a series of raids, the list is narrowed down with the help of witnesses, and a reenactment of the crime is filmed with the accused and a faceless dummy for fuzzy VHS-tape records. Gritty attention to period detail provides a very convincing recreation of a ‘90s of Volga cars, cigarette smoke and vintage tracksuits, that has cast off few of its Soviet-era trappings. Very much in the square, boxed-in frame are the slipshod methods by which the case is built, within a system that is not too concerned with securing the right culprit, or engaging with the accused on a human level, as long as someone takes the fall and punishment is seen to be meted out.
A deaf witness, who glimpsed the murder while swimming, gives her testimony through sign language inaccurately translated by a relative. The suspects are lined up on the stage of a theatre adorned with elaborate murals, crime being of more interest than culture to the state apparatus. It’s hard for her to tell the men apart — but as long as she singles out one, her job is considered done. Oleksandr questions Bohdan Biliak (Oleksandr Parkhomenko), the accused, to determine he is of sound mind. He exhibits problems with his memory, but he is by no means the only one, in a nation-state whose identity has been harshly repressed. We hear on the radio that the mayor of Moscow has declared that Russia will never leave Sevastopol. These are the words of an occupier that still views itself as the seat of an empire, and has continued its bloody incursions into autonomous territory for decades.
In conversation around the family dinner table of artist Aisel (Sana Shakhmuradova), the overwhelming experience comes up of viewing original paintings in the Uffizi gallery in Italy, and suffering Stendhal’s Syndrome — the intense physical and mental symptoms that can occur when confronted by great art. But if culture can flood the senses, what about violence? Unspoken of until after the meal is the impact, palpable in the stifling atmosphere, of her father’s aggressive, control-obsessed nature, and the dictatorial influence of his whole generation. This is the way of an old world that has been passed down, and has not been shaken off yet.
Director, sceenwriter, editing: Philip Sotnychenko
Producers: Halyna Kryvorchuk, Valeria Sochyvets, Sashko Chubko
Cinematography: Volodymyr Usyk
Cast: Andrii Zhurba, Novruz Hikmet Pashayev, Valeria Oleinikova, Olena Mamchur, Oleksandr Parkhomenko, Oleksandr Maleev, Vyacheslav Turyanytsya
Production design: Marharyta Kulyk
Sound design: Sergiy Avdeev
Production companies: Viatel (Ukraine), Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema (Ukraine)
World sales: Contemporary Ukrainian Cinema (Ukraine)
Venue: International Film Festival Rotterdam (Tiger Competition)
In Ukrainian, Russian, and Azerbaijani
100 minutes
