It’s a truism that wars and revolutions sweep away traditional lifestyles, but the truth is there’s always been strife of that sort, and certain ways of life have stubbornly clung on in isolated pockets. The real game-changer is the inexorable juggernaut of capitalism in a world where a lack of connection equals death. Maryna Vroda’s Stepne, a richly lensed meditation on loss – of a mother, of ties to the land, of a traditional existence – is a melancholy recognition of a nearly extinct way of life in rural north-eastern Ukraine, a locale seemingly untouched by the Russian invasion, expiring from modernity rather than conflict. Shifting between narrative and ethnography, the film is at its best in the documentary-like sequences, which are wisely given the time to play out. Although the present war isn’t directly referenced and the events could just as easily have occurred before the invasion, the fact that this is a Ukrainian film practically guarantees a healthy festival life.
There’s one hitch though: life in the village of Stepne, close to the Russian border, has been one of hardship for centuries. The peasants (the word is used in a non-pejorative sense, as people of the land) have barely changed since the days of serfdom, eking out an existence in an often unforgiving landscape with few resources. The film seems on the fence about whether to mourn this atrophied mode of life, which has carried on for so long not because it’s valued, but because these people were always denied access to advancement of any sort. Trapped in a cycle of poverty, they’ve persisted until finally the young people have abandoned such villages, leaving them inhabited solely by the elderly whose homes are left to rot once they die. Vroda’s ambiguity on this subject is perplexing: is she recording this last gasp in the manner of an anthropologist, or out of nostalgia? The answer is likely an ambivalent mix of the two.
Engineer Anatoliy (Oleksandr Maksiakov), known as Tolya, returns to his elderly mother’s house, knowing she’s unlikely to live much longer. Mariya (Nina Antonova) goes in and out of lucidity though her character remains strong, and a scene where her son reads aloud from her old diaries, in which she recorded weather changes and quotidian things, cleverly conveys an understanding of this resourceful woman in her prime. When she dies, her other son Oleksiy (Oleg Primogenov) also arrives, a security service officer with the face of a bulldog and the comportment to match. The brothers go about preparing the traditional rites and dealing with the house, which will end up shuttered and abandoned like most other dwellings in the village.
“It’s hard to follow the traditions with these wars and revolutions” says Tolya to one of the few remaining men more or less of his generation, but really, the traditions have been atrophying for a multitude of reasons. Just before Mariya dies, she grabs Tolya and asks him if he’s found the treasure she buried under the shed; it drives the brothers to dig a bit, but Vroda hasn’t made a treasure hunt film, and one is left to wonder whether the “treasure” is the land itself, trampled upon by invading armies and jealously nursing the psychological scars inflicted by Stalinism and the horrors of famine and war.
We get a glimpse of this in the film’s best scene, an extended sequence at Mariya’s dinner wake, when wizened-faced villagers gather, happy to have free warm food, discussing their memories filled with deprivation and loss. There’s melancholy but also a surprising degree of humor, especially from 89-year-old Halya, the deep-set lines of her Slavic features bearing witness to a lifetime of hardship, and yet in-between recounting horrors she’s teasing and ironic with the people around her. This is the centerpiece of Stepne, its true heart even though Tolya is a deeply sympathetic figure whose creativity had no outlet in such a place, and who knows there’s little point in openly expressing his affection for Anya (Radmila Schegoleva), the woman who helped look after Mariya and lives several fields away. It’s a tribute to Maksiakov’s skills as an actor that he brings a great deal of emotional depth to such an understated role.
D.p. Andrii Lysetskyi (who also directed the documentary Ivan’s Land) subtly varies the visuals, at first using a handheld camera whose movements are barely noticeable but makes the scene feel like its breathing, and mixes this with fixed shots encompassing the Ukrainian landscape in early winter. Primary colors are almost entirely absent here – apart from some light blue walls, everything is grey or brown, from the trees to the weather-beaten homes, from the clothes to the sky itself, which gives off a cold northern-feeling light. Also absent in this dying region is youth: only the elderly remain, as if waiting to die. During the wake the camera does shift to show to small kids, brought presumably by a neighbor, but their brief presence reinforces the understanding that the only way they’ll survive is to get out, like everyone else.
Director: Maryna Vroda
Screenplay: Maryna Vroda, Kirill Schuvalov
Cast: Oleksandr Maksiakov, Nina Antonova, Oleg Primogenov, Radmila Schegoleva, Volodymyr Yamnenko, Oleksiy Smolka, Serhii Syvokon, Maria Syvokon, Halyna Parfylo, Oleksandra Parfylo, Mykola Parfylo.
Producer: Maryna Vroda
Co-producers: Andrea Wohlfeil, Agnieszka Dziedzic, Jan Naszewski, Marcin Luczaj, Peter
Kerekes
Cinematography: Andrii Lysetskyi
Production designer: Mychailo Alekseenko
Costume designers: Volodymyr Kuznetzov, Oksana Kovtun
Editing: Franziska Wenzel, Maryna Vroda, Marek Sulik
Sound: Igor Jedinák, Lucas Kasprzyk, Sergiy Prokopenko
Production companies: vrodastudio (Ukraine), Film University Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF (Germany), Koi Studio (Poland), New Europe Film Sales (Poland), Kerekes Film (Slovakia)
World sales: New Europe Film Sales
Venue: Locarno (International competition)
In Ukrainian, Russian
112 minutes
