The film’s climax manages to be both brutal and, in the film’s last gasp, hopeful: a combined effect that Gorbach brings off with aplomb. (Revie by Patrick Compton)
Klondike is one of the films on the forthcoming European Film Festival in South Africa which goes hybrid for its 9th edition between October 13 and 23, 2022.
This unblinking Ukrainian drama, flecked with sardonic humour, is a largely grim affair that takes place about eight years ago in the contested Donbas region in the east of the country. The movie certainly speaks particularly eloquently to us now.
The action, seen from the point of view of a pregnant Irka (Oxana Cherkashyna), is largely set in a modest farmhouse in the countryside where she is more concerned about milking her cow and thinking about the impending birth of her child than the political tensions that are beginning to suffocate the neighbourhood.
Writer-director Maryna Er Gorbach dedicates the film “to women” and her attitude is underscored by the devastating climax to the film which suggests that while hapless men engage in the brutalities of war, it is the women who see life’s eternal verities with the clearer eye.
Irka keeps her political thoughts to herself – as does the film – but it’s clear that her sentiments lie with her country, while her weak husband Tolik (Sergey Shadrin) finds it convenient to co-operate with the separatists.
I’ve no idea what the title of the film means, but there is clearly no gold – metaphorical or otherwise – in the largely flat, colourless landscape which we see in the background through a large hole in the couple’s farmstead occasioned by a misdirected separatist bomb.
Tensions at home between Tolik, Irka and her Ukrainian nationalist brother Sanya, as well as in the wider Donbas, march in parallel step as we witness the downing of the Malaysian Airlines’ flight that was shot down by separatist militia in July 2014.
All this is coolly captured by Sviatoslav Bulahovskyi’s camera which pans to and fro across the landscape in long, unblinking shots that reveal the increasingly heartless interactions between Ukrainians and separatists.
The film’s climax manages to be both brutal and, in the film’s last gasp, hopeful: a combined effect that Gorbach brings off with aplomb. – Patrick Compton
The European Film Festival 2022 is screened online and runs from October 13 to 23, with all movies screened for free. There are also some showings in cinemas in Cape Town and Johannesburg. For more information, click on the Festival logo to the right of this article or visit www.eurofilmfest.co.za
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