The war in Ukraine did not start in February 2022, even if Putin launched a massive attack on the country then, perhaps in the vain hope that his government would collapse or go into exile. No, there was already a war in 2014, after the Maidan revolution, which pushed Kyiv out of Moscow’s sphere of influence and closer to that of Brussels. The Russian response was that some special forces occupied Crimea and others, discarding their insignia, invaded the Donbass, the eastern region, to join local puppets in an attempt to break the country’s unity.
Ukrainian film The Donbass Sniper released on Movistar Plus+ takes us into the war that existed before we all talked about war. In this year 2014, he introduces us to a very hip high school teacher: pacifist and environmentalist, he lives with his pregnant wife in a house in the country that they built themselves from recycled materials. When the Russian invasion surprises him and ruins his life, he runs to the Ukrainian resistance and quickly becomes an elite sniper.
The film has a remarkable technical bill. There are successful war scenes that convey the tension. But it fails to break away from nationalism, which is understandable given its context and doesn’t help the bottom line. He avoids the complexity of the human: the classic war films knew how to play attractive roles in the ranks of the enemy, even under the Nazis; that doesn’t happen here. And if you expected to plunge into the inner crisis of a person, going from idealistic hippie to cold executor, the desire remains: the guy has no doubts, he has the convert’s faith.
What’s happening? That the director, Marian Bushan, wrote the screenplay as a foursome with professor and war veteran Mykola Voronin, who drew inspiration from his own experiences. And the best characters don’t write themselves.
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