There is an unmistakable feeling of collective filmmaking in One Day in Ukraine, written and directed be Volodymyr Tykhyy but filmed by multitudes – there are twelve cinematographers listed in the end credits, each presumably covering different aspects of the shooting and locations. Everything fits together in a smooth and engrossing way, yet perhaps one could object that an overall atmosphere is missing, like the skin-crawling anxiety of Louie Palu’s doc Zero Position which follows a Canadian photographer in the Donbas war zones in 2014. Here, what’s lost in atmosphere is made up for in the sheer realism, at times the deliberate monotony, of a city at war.
This is the dead time before and after combat and, unlike typical news footage, no concessions are made to exciting/disturbing views of exploding aircraft or dead bodies by the side of the road. Here soldiers with anti-aircraft weapons fire at a plane and it simply disappears behind the clouds, leaving a feeling more of frustration than celebration.
Made by the filmmaking collective Babylon’13, which dates back to Ukraine’s Maidan uprisings of 2013-14, the documentary makes its world premiere as part of Sheffield Doc Fest’s special Ukraine focus, “Password: Palianytsia”. It describes various events occurring simultaneously in Kyiv on a single day, March 14, 2022 – making the point that we are not in the early days of the Russian-Ukrainian war. It’s actually the 2,944th day when counted from early 2014, and the current war is a continuation of that early conflict. So the war is already eight years old and no end is in sight.
In a chilling sort of preface tagged as “March 13, the 2,943rd day of the war”, the camera operator passes through a dark area of shadows to the overexposed white lighting of a modern metro station. As the escalator descends deeper and deeper underground, there is an uncomfortable sensation of entering a netherworld. Soon a tunnel appears before us lined with tents and camp beds, or sometimes just bundles of bedding. Oblivious kids are absorbed in their games, a father and young daughter wrestle playfully, while an elderly woman notes that the metro is a safer refuge than a basement. Later we will see a family raiding their own wrecked apartment in search of clean clothes.
March 14 dawns cold. The water of a lake is frozen over with ice and the skeletal branches of trees are frequented by birds, one of the many species of animals portrayed in the film. These innocent creatures seem particularly vulnerable to the vagaries of warfare and the citizens’ soft spot for their pet dogs and cats is evident.
Cooking in her kitchen, Dasha is a pretty girl whose qualities of generosity and self-sacrifice for others make her a true heroine. With striking fearlessness, she walks her two dogs in the park as though there was no war going on and offers three Ukrainian soldiers food, which they refuse. She says she has ordered 30 pairs of boots for the soldiers. Later she leaves scraps for stray dogs around a park as an air raid alert sounds menacingly. Later, in a casual scene, people take pictures around a new monument honoring volunteers like Dasha for their work and courage.
Perhaps the most fascinating scenes in this very low-key documentary are those of Ukrainian military men who are seen patrolling the city and flying a mean-looking black reconnaissance drone. The drone sends back detailed aerial shots of areas of the city — many destroyed. Only the five golden cupolas of a church seem still intact in one view of desolation. In an unexpected scene that almost veers towards humor, but not really, two looters are caught outside a supermarket by the soldiers and publicly pilloried by being bound to traffic poles with plastic wrap with their pants pulled down. One imagines the looters are Russians, though there is so little explanation in the film one can’t be sure who they are.
The sound design, full of indistinct background noise and distant booming, reinforces the post-apocalyptic feeling of what we are seeing. As the music grows louder it seems to build to a climax that never comes. But there is time: the 2,945th day of the Russian-Ukrainian war is just dawning.
Director, screenwriter: Volodymyr Tykhyy
Producers: Igor Savychenko, Volodymyr Tykhyy
Co-producer: Kamil Rutkowski
Cinematography: Yaroslav Pilunskiy, Yevhen Koseko, Serhii Stetsenko, Ihor Ivanko, Illya Yehorov, Ivan Bannikov, Roman Liubyi, Oleksandr Shkrabak, Ihor Lutsenko, Maksym Ruban, Yuri Gruzinov, Yuri Pupyrin
Editing: Volodymyr Tykhyy, Ivan Bannikov
Music: Mykyta Moiseiev
Production companies: #Babylon’13 (Ukraine) in association with Black Photon (Ukraine)
Venue: Sheffield Doc Fest (International competition)
78 minutes
