White Angel — The End of Marinka

White Angel — Das Ende von Marinka

DOK Leipzig

VERDICT: A hard-hitting immersion into life and death under Russian invasion in eastern Ukraine, 'White Angel - The End of Marinka' is seen through an evacuation team’s GoPro helmet footage.

An era of compact, portable tech has made it much easier for citizens on the ground to capture and share images of the devastation of war — a phenomenon capitalised on for bearing witness with harrowing immediacy in White Angel — The End of Marinka, which had its world premiere at DOK Leipzig, where it was a very uncompromising, non-feelgood and politically committed choice for opening film. Directed by Arndt Ginzel, an experienced war reporter for German broadcasters, the doc charts the terrorisation and decimation of a town in the east of Ukraine by Russian forces. It makes extensive use of footage shot with a GoPro camera attached to the helmet of Vasyl Pipa, a police officer from Marinka turned rescuer, as his evacuation group run missions in the white ambulance van locals have dubbed the “White Angel,” between the spring and autumn of 2022 after the escalation of the Russian invasion.

Pipa also narrates, his candid, personal impressions alternating with interviews of the rescuers and survivors conducted by the director six months after the team’s last mission. In conventionally composed, talking-head segments those who made it out of Marinka reflect on their experience of the traumatic last days in their hometown, and their hopes for the future. School janitor Natalya and her daughter Elena convey a strong spirit of cross-generational resilience, and an urge to rebuild. The doc’s cinematic and festival prospects are hampered by the television-oriented format and some unfortunate production choices (the intrusive music is utterly superfluous, as there is no need to augment the already charged, nerve-shredding tension). But as an unmediated window onto the current horror that Ukrainian populations under attack are experiencing, the immersive access achieved by the film is exceptional. This is not a film for the fainthearted. Driven by a journalistic intent to bear witness to the full extent of the town’s suffering, their graphic injuries and the psychological pressure they are under, Ginzel does not hold back on gruesome content and scenes of distress, which accumulate over the film’s somewhat long running time into a gruelling experience.

As the frontline moves to Marinka, the air fills with smoke and artillery fire from the ongoing fighting. We’re immersed in a chaotic and unpredictable, fast-paced atmosphere of dread, as Pipa and driver Rustyam travel back and forth to the town, transporting the few inhabitants that are left from its peacetime population of 10,000 to a safe zone over the border. The evacuation team’s hurried pick-up trips, arriving to the street numbers of houses they have received calls to evacuate, are most often met with a disoriented lethargy on the part of the evacuees. This provides unnerving insight into the unreality of war, as we see how those under bombardment have lost the ability to think logically or fully register danger. The basements of the local school and polyclinic serve as makeshift bomb shelters. The underground spaces, damp and dark though they are, are relative safety zones, where locals seem to shut down, and cling to the only sense of home they have left. Some argue that leaving would result in robbery; others say they prefer to wait and have their fates determined by destiny. The evacuation team’s firm persuasion sways most. Cluster munitions, mine explosions and shrapnel have left many wounded, and the team, not trained to give medical aid, do the best they can before shuttling the casualties out to hospital. In a particularly bloody and upsetting scene, they administer a tourniquet and try to calm a man with a leg injury, not daring to let him know yet that his wife was killed on the spot when a missile hit the kitchen where she was cooking.

The doc is assembled chronologically, and, as the weeks drag on, the mission largely changes to evacuating bodies of the dead. The destruction of the town advances, until it is a lifeless ruin. Pipa says he decided to film White Angel missions to document war crimes and in so doing assist in their future prosecution. Arranged into this documentary, the footage also becomes another, particularly searing reminder of war’s pointlessness and inhumanity as a force contrary to all signs of life.

Director: Arndt Ginzel
Cinematography: Gerald Gerber
Editing: Stefan Eggers, Guntram Schuschke, Annina Wolf
Producer: Martin Kraushaar
Music: Hans Henning Ginzel
Production companies: GKD-Journalisten (Germany), ZDF (Germany)
Sales: Weltkino Filmverleih
Venue: DOK Leipzig
In Ukrainian, Russian
103 minutes