Dec 20, 2024
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Ukrainian Movie Combines Opposites Beautifully
by Doniphan Blair
Scene from 'The Porcelain War', a fascinating new film from Ukraine. image: courtesy Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev PLEASE support our GoFundMe campaign to cover research expenses for our articles and rebuilding the cineSOURCE site.
In these challenging times, it’s critical that those on the front lines help those of us far from it learn how to meet the challenges we may someday face. Not only do we have to move from spoiled insouciant to responsible adult, pronto, we have to embrace many other extreme opposites.
No where is this more manifest then among Ukrainians, where a comedic writer and actor shape shifted into their president and, even more incredibly, a great wartime leader. It is also evident in the new film, “The Porcelain War,” by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev, an American filmmaker and Ukrainian ceramicist, respectively. In it, we soon learn that the friendly people and fantastic artists from the storied city of Kharkiv are also the soldiers defending it, see trailer.
Unlike in the gargantuan Russia, which only has two great cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, Ukraine has about ten, starting with Kyiv and including Odessa and Kharkiv, both famous for their poets, artists and filmmakers. Because Kharkiv is less than 50 miles from the Russian border, its residents have also become famous for fighting an implacable, murderous enemy.
In fact, Kharkiv is home base for the notorious Azov Battalion, which has been standing against the Russians since they first invaded in 2014, and is now Ukraine’s most laurelled division. Outside of Ukraine, people criticize the Azov for being hard right, unaware how hard they’re fighting, not just for Ukraine’s democracy—led by a Jewish president they love—but for democracy internationally. A young friend of mine from Lviv, another artist-filled Ukrainian city, who happens to be a scrawny intellectual, just quit his job, started working out and volunteered for the Azov—who accepted him into its drone corps. I couldn’t be prouder.
Indeed, not only are the Ukrainians the frontline for democracy in Europe, they provided drones and intelligence to the Syrian rebels. And the liberation of Syria, in 12 days, after 12 terrible years, has not only rid the world of a brutal fascist dictator, it dealt the fascist alliance of Russia and Iran a serious blow.
“The Porcelain War”, however, whisks us away from such sick realities to a terrible war balanced by incredible beauty, which is needed to endure the long haul, which this struggle will be. Unlike the Azov, which was originally composed of soccer hooligans and Nazi punks, “The Porcelain War” documents a small unit of diverse Kharkivians—artists, doctors and farmers—who refuse to abandon their much bombed but even more beloved city, and are fighting for it as a potent drone unit.
One team member is Slava Leontyev, one of the filmmakers, and between scenes of war, we join him and his wife, Anya Stasenko, in their studio. He sculpts small animal figurines, which combine folkloric and modernism, and she paints them, often with incredible light or nature nearby or in the background. Indeed, the cinematography is fantastic. Then, as we settle into this intense opposition—war, making art, walking in lovely nature—the film jumps another notch, into gorgeous animation. It all serves to bring home, subtly and sophisticatedly, unlike any war film I have ever seen, the intense integration of life and death, art and war, dream and determination, that we need fight in the modern interconnected world.
“The Porcelain War” just won a Sundance award, is shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature Film at the 2025 Oscars, and opens on Friday, January 3rd, at the San Francisco’s AMC Metreon and the Smith Rafael Film Center, in San Rafael.
Posted on Dec 20, 2024 - 07:07 AM
by Doniphan Blair
Scene from 'The Porcelain War', a fascinating new film from Ukraine. image: courtesy Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev In these challenging times, it’s critical that those on the front lines help those of us far from it learn how to meet the challenges we may someday face. Not only do we have to move from spoiled insouciant to responsible adult, pronto, we have to embrace many other extreme opposites.
No where is this more manifest then among Ukrainians, where a comedic writer and actor shape shifted into their president and, even more incredibly, a great wartime leader. It is also evident in the new film, “The Porcelain War,” by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev, an American filmmaker and Ukrainian ceramicist, respectively. In it, we soon learn that the friendly people and fantastic artists from the storied city of Kharkiv are also the soldiers defending it, see trailer.
Unlike in the gargantuan Russia, which only has two great cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, Ukraine has about ten, starting with Kyiv and including Odessa and Kharkiv, both famous for their poets, artists and filmmakers. Because Kharkiv is less than 50 miles from the Russian border, its residents have also become famous for fighting an implacable, murderous enemy.
In fact, Kharkiv is home base for the notorious Azov Battalion, which has been standing against the Russians since they first invaded in 2014, and is now Ukraine’s most laurelled division. Outside of Ukraine, people criticize the Azov for being hard right, unaware how hard they’re fighting, not just for Ukraine’s democracy—led by a Jewish president they love—but for democracy internationally. A young friend of mine from Lviv, another artist-filled Ukrainian city, who happens to be a scrawny intellectual, just quit his job, started working out and volunteered for the Azov—who accepted him into its drone corps. I couldn’t be prouder.
Indeed, not only are the Ukrainians the frontline for democracy in Europe, they provided drones and intelligence to the Syrian rebels. And the liberation of Syria, in 12 days, after 12 terrible years, has not only rid the world of a brutal fascist dictator, it dealt the fascist alliance of Russia and Iran a serious blow.
“The Porcelain War”, however, whisks us away from such sick realities to a terrible war balanced by incredible beauty, which is needed to endure the long haul, which this struggle will be. Unlike the Azov, which was originally composed of soccer hooligans and Nazi punks, “The Porcelain War” documents a small unit of diverse Kharkivians—artists, doctors and farmers—who refuse to abandon their much bombed but even more beloved city, and are fighting for it as a potent drone unit.
One team member is Slava Leontyev, one of the filmmakers, and between scenes of war, we join him and his wife, Anya Stasenko, in their studio. He sculpts small animal figurines, which combine folkloric and modernism, and she paints them, often with incredible light or nature nearby or in the background. Indeed, the cinematography is fantastic. Then, as we settle into this intense opposition—war, making art, walking in lovely nature—the film jumps another notch, into gorgeous animation. It all serves to bring home, subtly and sophisticatedly, unlike any war film I have ever seen, the intense integration of life and death, art and war, dream and determination, that we need fight in the modern interconnected world.
“The Porcelain War” just won a Sundance award, is shortlisted for Best Documentary Feature Film at the 2025 Oscars, and opens on Friday, January 3rd, at the San Francisco’s AMC Metreon and the Smith Rafael Film Center, in San Rafael.
Posted on Dec 20, 2024 - 07:07 AM
