A rape victim, held captive by a Russian soldier, may or may not be suffering from Stockholm syndrome, but the fictional heroine of the 2020 film “Bad Roads” sums up the hard-won mantra of the Ukrainian people since 2014.
“Any trauma can be turned into experience,” she says.
In other words, turning trauma to experience means survival.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine began Feb. 24, bringing a renewed focus and international outcry to a conflict that has been smoldering for almost a decade. Russia, together with pro-Russian separatists, first began fighting in the Donbas region of southeastern Ukraine in 2014, an ongoing conflict that is now part of the current general war. Donbas is again in Putin’s crosshairs after his initial attempt to capture Kyiv failed.
The Donbas region is the focus of a Ukrainian film series beginning Friday, April 15, at the Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael. The weeklong event — during which four films are scheduled to screen twice — is a fundraiser for the Ukraine Crisis Fund, a charity administered byAmericaresthat delivers medicine, medical supplies and emergency funding to Ukrainian families and victims.
Be warned: Most of the films contain stretches of graphic brutality. War is hell, and Ukrainian filmmakers want the world to know how much their country is suffering.
But one very special film, the only documentary of the bunch, eschews brutality and instead focuses on hope. “The Earth Is Blue as an Orange” (7 p.m. Sunday, April 17; 7 p.m. Wednesday, April 20) is about the remarkable Trofymchuk-Gladky family in the war-zone town of Krasnohorivka.
Anna is a single mother and multimedia artist raising four children. Attempting to create a safe haven amid conflict, the family shares a love of cinema and creativity. Teenage daughter Myroslava becomes interested in cinematography and embarks on a project documenting her town and family during war.
Filmmaker and poet Iryna Tsilyk won the directing award in the World Cinema Documentary category at the 2020 Sundance Film Festival, and she has crafted a warm, lovely portrait of resilience. See it by all means.
Also intriguing is “Reflection” (4:15 p.m. Sunday, April 17; 7 p.m. Thursday, April 21), a film in two parts. A surgeon, Serhiy (an excellent Roman Lutskiy), is captured by Russian forces and forced to treat victims whom soldiers have “interrogated.” Scenes are graphic and brutal, but director Valentyn Vasyanovych’s camera maintains distance. Serhiy does his best to stitch up the victims, but those he can’t save he has to help load into mobile crematoriums for disposal.
The film kicks into gear in the second half after his release, when he returns home to his high-rise apartment and attempts to re-engage with his teenage daughter and ex-wife. Interestingly, Vasyanovych’s camera is removed even in these scenes, until it creeps closer and closer to intimacy.
The other two films, “Bad Roads” (7 p.m. Friday, April 15; 7 p.m. Monday, April 18) and “Donbass” (7 p.m. Saturday, April 16; 7 p.m. Tuesday, April 19), are omnibus films telling different stories.
“Bad Roads,” which was Ukraine’s entry for consideration for the 2022 Oscars, contains the best performance of the series in Maryna Klimova’s portrayal of a journalist who is imprisoned and raped by a Russian commander (played by Yuri Kulinich). The sequence, the longest of the four stories told in Natalya Vorozhbit’s film, subverts expectations at several turns.
All four vignettes are intense and contain only two or three characters. Vorozhbit — born in Kyiv, educated in Moscow — is also a playwright, and “Bad Roads” was originally presented onstage in 2017 at the Royal Court Theater in London.
The less said about “Donbass” (2018), the better. A film in 13 segments by acclaimed director Sergei Loznitsa, it’s a scattershot dark, satirical comedy about life in the wartime Donbas region. It begins cleverly enough with actors in makeup interrupted by sounds of war. But wait: The “attack” in a civilian city center has been staged; these are crisis actors being ferried into position for a pro-separatist propaganda video.
Loznitsa captures the post-truth era well, but his episodes are so uninvolving (perhaps because he jumps from one segment to the other before we get to know anyone) and of varying quality that the film quickly runs out of steam.
乌克兰的系列电影runs Friday, April 15, through Thursday, April 21. $9-$12.50. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. 415-454-1222.cafilm.org