Vidblysk

Valentyn Vasyanovytch's films about the conflict that broke out in Ukraine in 2014 are bleak. With his previous film Atlantis (2019) Vasyanovytch gained international acclaim by balancing the bleakness with scenes of great visual poetry. On account of that film's quality I had high expectations for Vidblysk (Reflection).

Sadly, that visual poetry is almost entirely lacking. All that remains is bleakness. Vasyanovytch is known for his long, static shots. Here such shots linger on torture scenes, which will make many viewers uncomfortable.

Morgues are a common feature in Vasyanovytch's films, but his cold, clinical style makes every indoor location resemble one, including living rooms, which are invariably drab gray.

The film's biggest flaw is that the protagonists are nearly always filmed with long shots, This, combined with a very superficial characterization, make it impossible for the viewer to engage with them emotionally. So no matter how bleak the film became, the result left me rather cold.

There are one or two scenes where an attempt is made to provide meaningful depth, but the film's overall lack of inspiration makes them fall flat.

This is a movie with a very interesting cinemathigraphy and long scenes. Its colors are dark as it is the mood of the film. A lot of violence, death, humiliation, but at the same time also an attempt for a normal life, hope for the future and even love.

Some of the scenes were unnecessarily long but at some point the viewer gets used to that.

I don't discount the other reviewers who felt the sequences are too slow. It didn't work, for them. But I liked it better. I think the reviewer who says the first half is about a kidnapping and the second half is uninteresting missed the point. The film seemed to be to be about the psychological effect of witnessing and enduring terrible things, and then slowly trying to come emotionally alive again.

It worked, for me.

There are a lot of shots where we as viewers are in an enclosed space with the main character, sometimes looking beyond him to a pane of glass that leads, mostly, to emptiness (or once, to violence). I thought it was effective. Others clearly didn't like it, but I did.

A 2021 ukrainian film about the 2014 war with russia should be relevant in 2022. The first scene is amazing and when you get it, it's like a punch in the guts. Then you notice meta things, you notice metaphors that are great, if obvious, and feel the film is up to something good. But then... it dawns on you the whole movie is made of static and extremely long shots, so long they make you not care about what's happening anymore. You want the film to end faster and half way through it, you feel watching the paint dry would be way more rewarding and thrilling.

Also, as the film progresses, the story is more and more disjointed, it misses milestones and rewards, it randomly jumps from a moment to another, you don't understand what's happening as action contradicts itself, until it ends with a scene that cries "Look at me, I make art film!".

I think the writer/director had a great idea for a movie, but ruined it because he tried to turn it into what he thinks is an art film. This film makes promises but then it doesn't deliver, most probably because the author thinks that lack of reward authomatically makes it an art film.

I just hope he'll come around and edit out those long, useless, alienating long shots, that were trendy 60 years ago, and make a real film out of it.

The movie has long and still sequences. There are only four or five scenes which the camera moves. Cinematography and mise en scene are eye catching. But I think story has got some weak points. The first half is about the Surgeon getting kidnapped. The second half feels like a different story. But overall it is worth a watch.