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Film Review: KLONDIKE: A Staunchly Apolitical Yet Affecting Modern War Film [Sundance 2022]

Oxana Cherkashyna Klondike 01
Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Klondike Review

Klondike (2022) Film Review from the 45th Annual Sundance Film Festival, a movie written and directed by Maryna Er Gorbach, starring Oxana Cherkashyna, Sergey Shadrin, Oleg Shcherbina, and Oleg Shevchuk, and Evgeniy Efremov.

Set in July 2014 at the onset of the Donbas war, Klondike opens with a bang – literally, as a rogue missile tears down the walls of a farmhouse in the Donetsk oblast with a couple still inside. Crawling out of the debris more irritated than harmed, the wife Irka (Oxana Cherkashyna), who is also six months pregnant, sets about cleaning up in a cloud of frustration. Her husband Tolik (Sergey Shadrin) rationalizes this as further proof that they should pack up and move westward, further away from the Russian border, but Irka is steadfast in remaining at her homestead – especially since Tolik’s Separatist buddy Sanya (Oleg Shevchuk) will likely commandeer their abandoned home for a makeshift rebel encampment, just like he continuously “borrows” their car to transport fighters around.

Complicating things further is the return of Irka’s younger brother Yaryk (Oleg Shcherbina), a recent university graduate who has just returned from Kyiv. He, too, wants Irka to leave their farmhouse for some safer haven, but he couches his concerns in a Ukrainian nationalist sentiment that Irka has no interest in. It also puts him at odds with Tolik, who is not particularly of the Separatist mindset but is staunchly apolitical to a nearly radical degree (he and Irka just want to be left completely alone, is that too much for a farming couple to ask??). This instability of the family unit puts Irka and Tolik on an edge that never lets up, weakening their bonds at the worst possible moment.

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The most notable takeaway of Klondike – beyond its beautiful and gliding long takes of the Ukrainian countryside, slowly soaking up all the chaos and conflict like a sponge – is its aforementioned apoliticism. Knowing next to nothing about the Russo-Ukrainian conflict personally (beyond some underdeveloped inklings that would be irresponsible to share in a professional setting), it’s hard to make a moral claim over Gorbach’s creative decision in that regard. But from a broader viewpoint, her film points out the dangers inherent in political inaction, creating a void that will allow those with more steadfast commitment – for better or for worse – to sweep in and take control.

What’s also true is that Klondike is not a finger-wagging condemnation of the apolitical, either. While Gorbach doesn’t necessarily show Irka and Tolik’s lack of alignment as laudable, she nonetheless uses them as proxies for a sort of lumpenproletariat that gets steamrolled amidst the clash of larger mechanisms like states, parties, and other political factions. The perspective of the personal gets forgotten against the backdrop of seismic cultural shifts, and when those bits of humanity are discarded it can still be a tragic loss.

This loss is made starkly clear with Irka’s position in the narrative, as she’s forced to endure the results of Tolik’s timidity towards Sanya and the rebels while also diffuse Yaryk’s impassioned but hollow outbursts – all while carrying a child and cleaning up a bombed-out house. Gorbach eulogizes this sentiment in the film’s concluding dedication to all women, suggesting that the working-class women of the world – despite being the glue that holds society together – are the ones who experience the most loss, particularly of their lives and their livelihoods. If these women embody a sense of apoliticism, Gorbach suggests that it is forced onto them by outside forces rather than it being a conscious choice of their own making.

Gorbach (who took home the Directing Award in the World Dramatic competition at this year’s Sundance) and her cinematographer Svyatoslav Bulakovskiy frame Irka and Tolik’s struggles in the Donetsk oblast through long takes and wide angles, cleverly layering information throughout the screen or reserving it altogether for a striking reveal. Two examples of these takes involve an airliner allegedly shot down by Separatist forces, and Gorbach and Bulakovskiy cut between close-ups and wide shots to reveal the full scope of the tragedy at varying speeds. Another is the opening shot within the farmhouse during its bombing: a continuously slow panorama that plays like a war film directed by Chantal Akerman.

Klondike is thusly a modern tragedy told beautifully blunt. Regardless of where it falls politically (if anywhere at all) it still elicits a powerful response, which on its own is sometimes enough.

Rating: 7/10

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Jacob Mouradian

A Midwest transplant in the Big Apple, Jacob can never stop talking about movies (it’s a curse, really). Although a video editor and sound mixer by trade, he’s always watching and writing about movies in his spare time. However, when not obsessing over Ken Russell films or delving into some niche corner of avant-garde cinema, he loves going on bike rides, drawing in his sketchbook, exploring all that New York City has to offer, and enjoying a nice cup of coffee.
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