17/02/2024 - BERLINALE 2024: Returning to the deep south of his native Ukraine, Roman Bondarchuk creates a smart, often outlandish but carefully observed reflection on the local media
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The orange-green glow of heat camera footage reveals a couple of figures, likely soldiers given their bulky clothing and weaponry, standing around a small trench. A prostrate body is dragged in and pitched into the shallow grave, shovelfuls of dirt slung over it.
The image is so alien it takes a minute to process its real horror â the blob representing the victim is glowing orange as the black earth gradually obscures it: he is being buried alive. Ukrainian director Valentyn Vasyanovychâs remarkable Venice 2019 Horizons winner Atlantis may immediately switch to exquisitely composed, live-action images of startlingly crisp, austere devastation but his filmâs most potent motifs are all established in this eerie, alien opening: war, death, callousness, heat and dirt.