Stop-Zemlia review – tender Ukraine teen drama is unbearably poignant – The Guardian
This light, authentic-feeling coming-of-age drama from Ukrainian film-maker Kateryna Gornostai premiered on the Berlin competition in 2021. Launched within the UK nearly a 12 months to the day because the Russian invasion, her movie has turn into unbearably poignant. It follows a category of 16-year-olds over the course of a single winter: nothing main occurs; they hang around, drink a good bit, occasion just a little, grapple with sexuality and psychological well being. Truly, the loveliest factor concerning the movie is the way it retains all of them protected. They’re good youngsters; we go away them with all the pieces to stay for.
At instances it looks like we’re watching a documentary. The actors appear so relaxed and intimate – like precise classmates who’ve grown up collectively through the years, and who know one another inside out. The principle focus is Masha (Maria Fedorchenko), a hunch-shouldered shy woman with large eyes and cropped Mia Farrow hair. Masha is a little bit of an outsider in school, however she’s assured along with her mates Yana (Yana Isaienko) and Senia (Arsenii Markov), an absolute sweetheart. Everybody thinks Senia is homosexual; he’s OK with that.
The movie is so mild on its toes, and feels so easy. Including to the fly-on-wall texture, there’s some talking-head-style interviews – shot as if a film-maker has come into faculty to talk to the youngsters about life’s biggies: love, friendship, hopes and goals. That is on the finish of the college 12 months in summer time, as swifts shriek within the background (a reminder, maybe, of how fleetingly particular this second of adolescence is).
Watching the movie now, a scene within the faculty’s basement is extremely unhappy. The category troops in for “pre-conscription coaching” – a solider teaches them the best way to load and shoot a rifle. They’re principally laughing, no clue of what’s to come back. In actual life, two of the forged and crew have been killed by struggle: the manufacturing designer and one of many grownup actors. Many of the youngsters at the moment are residing overseas. Director Kateryna Gornostai has been volunteering in a neighborhood kitchen in Kyiv. I actually hope she will get the prospect to make one other movie.
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