A haunting portrait of Ukraine war brings warning to Venice

[September 05, 2024]  By Crispian Balmer

VENICE (Reuters) - A documentary about Russia's invasion of Ukraine shown at the Venice Film Festival should serve as a warning to the rest of Europe over the dangers posed by Moscow, its protagonists said on Wednesday.

"Songs of Slow Burning Earth," directed by Olha Zhurba, shows the devastating impact the conflict has had on ordinary Ukrainians, from the moment the first Russian missiles rained down in February 2022 to the on-going resistance against one of the most powerful armies in the world.

"It is a good chance for other countries to think and (look at) what we are facing now and to be ready and probably not to be as naive as we were," said Ganna Vasyk, a frontline army medic who features in the film.

Russia repeatedly denied that it was planning to attack Ukraine before President Vladimir Putin sent tanks across the border. It has subsequently rejected suggestions it might attack other former Soviet Union states that are now part of the West.

"I think that this movie is really important to understand that nobody can stay ignorant...because ignorance kills," Vasyk told a press conference ahead of Wednesday's premiere.

The film opens with the panicked calls to Ukraine's emergency services as the first volley of Russian bombs reverberated in the background.

As the war gets closer, we see desperate civilians looking to flee the capital Kyiv while exhausted volunteers help families escape Mariupol in southeast Ukraine, which saw some of the heaviest initial fighting of the war.

Later, the camera films through the windscreen of a truck bringing home the body of a slain soldier, with onlookers kneeling by the snowy roadside as the coffin passes on its way to a packed cemetery.

Zhurba subsequently shows medics seeking to identify dead Ukrainian troops and investigators digging up the corpse of a possible war crime victim. What the documentarist never shows is any gore or explosion. That is all left just out of view.

Director Olha Zhurba poses with Mykhailo Puryshev, Ganna Vasyk and Mykola Hradnov-Savytskyi during a photocall for "Pisni zemli, shcho povilno horyt" (Songs of Slow Burning Earth), out of competition, at the 81st Venice Film Festival, Venice, Italy, September 4, 2024. REUTERS/Yara Nardi

"If (the film) shows you corpses or destruction, it will just shock you, not evoke the right feelings of what war is. I think that art is too weak, and there is no language to explain this experience of war," Zhurba said.

The documentary shows the resilience of those caught up in the conflict, be it bakers continuing to work despite bombs falling nearby, or soldiers learning to walk on new prosthetic limbs.

It also shows how the horror becomes routine, with a young boy describing offhandedly how he picked up the severed head of a Russian invader.

"We have became so tolerant to death, which is, I think, very horrible," Zhurba said.

The documentary includes just one scene shot from within Russia - children singing a patriotic song while they march around their school hall, led by a soldier.

"I wanted to show with this episode that this war will be very long, because they (are) preparing new generations from a very early age to fight," said Zhurba.

(Reporting by Crispian Balmer; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

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