Among the many documentaries scheduled for the approach of February 24, the anniversary of the war in Ukraine, some stand out, distinguishing themselves by their stylistic rigor and their emotional force. This is the case of the one directed by the experienced British documentary filmmaker Robin Barnwell. A dive into the heart of Mariupol, a major port in southeastern Ukraine. A city with 430,000 inhabitants before the Russian invasion, flourishing, dynamic, pleasant to live in, turned towards Europe.
After three months of war and a bewilderingly brutal siege that this documentary manages to capture, Mariupol will become the European city where the greatest number of civilians have been killed since the Second World War. According to the Ukrainian authorities, 25,000 civilians died there. An example of this daily horror is the images shot by drones showing, in real time, blocks of buildings hit, visibly at random, by bombs. Where will the next fall? Seen from the sky, it looks like a video game, but it’s war, the dirty, the real one.
Personal videos and drones
From February 24, the date of the attack by Russian troops on the outskirts of Mariupol, until May 21, 2022 and the surrender of the last fighters entrenched in the Azovstal metallurgical complex, this documentary delves into the heart of the horror experienced by civilians whose the raw testimonies, in an urban hell where death can fall from the sky at any moment, are poignant.
These testimonies (from Oksana, an anesthesiologist, to Hanna, the recluse teacher with her baby for two months in a bunker, passing by Olga, who lost her husband and her parents in a bombardment) alternate with many personal videos , shot on mobile phone.
Robin Barnwell’s talent is to have succeeded in constructing a fascinating account of this siege by fluidly showing these personal images, those, sometimes shocking, testimonies of these Ukrainian women trying to survive in an apocalypse landscape, and the famous images shot by drones.
Without forgetting, effective detail, some short extracts from the speeches made at the time by Vladimir Putin, whose cynicism and lies burst into the open, like the bombs thrown blindly by his troops.
Hunger, anguish, hope, rage parade along this endless siege. The maternity ward, the theatre, the steelworks bunkers, the apartments still intact or devastated, the frozen earth which prevents the bodies of neighbors from being buried, we plunge into the bowels of Mariupol and we understand better what living everyday war means.
On February 24, 2022, the first day of the siege, Diana, from her balcony, encourages Ukrainian armor passing under her windows: “Go ahead, smash them!” “, She cries. A few weeks later, she will only talk about survival.
