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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.
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Death is present in practically every moment of Ukrainian director Valentyn Vasyanovych’s “Atlantis.” This fact (as well as the deliberate pacing) doesn’t make the film an easy watch, but for the patient viewer, there are rewards to be found. Ukraine’s submission for this year s Academy Award for the Best International Feature Film (though it failed to make the final shortlist of 15 titles in contention for the prize), the film is undeniably bleak, though by its final moments even its desolation gives way to a faint ray of hope. click to enlarge PHOTO COURTESY GRASSHOPPER FILMS A scene from the Ukrainian drama Atlantis. The film is set in a bombed-out Ukraine of 2025, in the aftermath of Russia’s currently ongoing war against the country. The narrative pla
“Atlantis” is by far one of the bleakest films to come along in quite some time. Over the course of its 106 minutes, it touches on such subjects as PTSD, climate change, suicide, the dark side of capitalism, and the lingering traumas of war, without sugarcoating any of them. At the same time, it s an extremely well-made film that contains some truly extraordinary imagery. The trick for yours truly is to write a review that can somehow convince you to give the film a chance.
The movie is set in the Ukraine in 2025, and we learn via title cards that this is five years after government forces triumphed in battle over pro-Russian separatists. Perhaps “triumphed” is not quite the right word because what has been left behind is a blasted-out hellscape consisting largely of rubble, polluted water, and people still suffering the lingering effects of the traumas of combat. Two such people are Sergiy (Andriy Rymaruk) and Ivan (Vasyl Antoniak), former soldiers who struggle to cope wi