In the week between the Grammys and the Super Bowl, Human Rights Watch announced that Vladimir Putin and other military officials should be investigated for war crimes following Russia’s assault on Mariupol. On Valentine’s Day it was reported that UNESCO calculated that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused $3.5 billion in damage so far to the country’s heritage and cultural sites.
The fight for a nation’s independence shouldn’t have to battle for headlines, but Roman Bondarchuk explores this grim state of affairs in his exceptionally clever and bleakly funny The Editorial Office. The director’s latest peers back at the recent past and ahead to the hopefully not too distant future, straddling a fine line between cynicism and optimism as it aims to shake the people of Ukraine out of the grip of their phones and determine their fate.
“If you want to achieve success, don’t waste time on random events,” Mykhailo (Oleksandr Shmal) advises Yura (Dmytro Bahnenko). It’s 2021, six months before the war with Russia, and the pair are searching the wild steppes of southern Ukraine for an endangered species of hedgehog. Finding evidence of the animal will ensure the region’s inclusion in the EU’s Emerald Network of special conservation areas. What they capture with their cameras instead is evidence of arsonists setting the area’s pine forests on fire. When Mykhailo disappears the next day, Yura winds up on nothing but an odyssey of random events, as he tries to find his friend and colleague and expose the crime. But at every turn he’s met with the obstacles of a clickbait, post-truth world.
Laid off from the museum where he works, and falling into a job at a newspaper, Yura quickly discovers that getting anyone to publish his story or find his friend is nearly impossible. It’s all about “ad buys and readers” his exasperated editor Vitali (Maksym Kurochkin) explains. From cryptocurrency hypemen to Instagram influencers, from corrupt local elections to volunteer corps resistance movements, Yura takes an increasingly Kafka-esque journey that exposes him to the many peddling easy answers and fake news to the self-involved, and the few working for the common good. But along the way he finds an ally in fellow reporter Lera (Zhanna Ozirna) and together they risk their lives to lift the veil on a far-reaching conspiracy.
What at first plays as a loose, unconnected series of events gradually reveals itself to be a shrewdly and tightly structured screenplay by Bondarchuk, Alla Tyutyunnyk, and Dar’ya Averchenko. Carrying the wearied demeanour of an Aki Kaurismaki character, the perfectly pitched, reserved performance by first-time actor Bahnenko (who is currently serving in Ukraine’s Armed Forces) carries us through the picture’s enjoyably winding narrative. The slightly heightened, sardonic, and delightfully absurdist tone of The Editorial Office masks its cry for vigilance in face of clout chasing distractions. The disappearance and arson are stand-ins for the myriad of issues currently facing the country, ones that those both inside and outside Ukraine may feel they don’t have the power to change.
The impressive, panoramic widescreen work by cinematographer Vadym Ilkov initially feels almost too big for a film that spends a good chunk of its time in offices and homes. But the choices become clear in the film’s astonishing and ambitious high-wire climax where Ilkov fully flexes his muscle with a sequence that can only be described (without spoiling things) as Midsommar meets A Serious Man as written by Armando Ianucci. It’s a bold, spectacular, and grimly amusing payoff that sees Bondarchuk imagining a post-war Ukraine and global political spectrum still defined by social media engagement. But the film, swimming between anger and hope, also argues it doesn’t have to be this way. When Yura is first hired at the paper, Vitaly asks him to look out the window and describe what he sees in a vista clouded by smoke from the forest fires. Yura’s searching eyes are the only ones to spot a torn Ukrainian flag perched on a building that needs tending to. As long as somebody refuses to look away, the country and its people will keep moving forward.
Director: Roman Bondarchuk
Screenplay: Alla Tyutyunnyk, Dar’ya Averchenko, Roman Bondarchuk
Cast: Dmytro Bahnenko, Zhanna Ozirna, Rymma Ziubina, Andrii Kyrylchuk, Oleksandr Shmal
Producers: Darya Bassel, Dar’ya Averchenko
Cinematography: Vadym Ilkov
Production design: Kirill Shuvalov
Costumes: Sofia Doroshenko
Editing: Viktor Onysko, Nikon Romanchenko
Music: Anton Baibakov
Sound: Serhiy Stepansky
Production companies: Moon Man (Ukraine), Elemag Pictures (Germany), Silverart (Slovakia), Master Film (Czech Republic)
Venue: Berlinale (Forum)
In Ukrainian, English
126 minutes
