No other film in the history of cinema has illustrated in such a diaphanous way what, in truth already so old, that women give life, and men distribute death.
A woman is about to give birth, while the men kill each other.
And in fact it is what she ends up doing: giving birth alone, in the midst of rubble and corpses, in an overwhelming final shot.
We are in the midst
of the Donbas war, in July 2014
, when a missile of Russian origin shot down a Malaysia Airlines plane with 289 passengers on board.
Moscow denied any responsibility, but the matter has just reached the courts, propping up the thesis that they were pro-Putin separatists.
Significantly, the film
Klondike
, by the Ukrainian Maryna Er Gorbach and already available on Filmin, opens with a couple's discussion.
And while they are arguing, the war, which never knocks on the door, enters in the form of a howitzer through the window
, taking half the wall and turning the room into a magnificent viewpoint with panoramic views, shot in 360º, over the surrounding sunflower fields ( It is already known that Ukraine is, or was, a large importer of the other oil).
The gigantic hole at the back of the room remains as a
mise en abyme
between the daily life of the couple and the deadly chaos of History.
Er Gorbach, who took 64 flights around the world last year to promote his film, laughs: "They always ask me if I hate men, and I don't.
I have nothing against them.
I am sure that there are very creative men, and that there are also women who are more inclined to destruction
.
But it seemed to me the most appropriate dramaturgy to show an independent country invaded by outsiders.
The house symbolizes the beleaguered nation.
The film, in fact, had a prophetic character, since it premiered at the 2022 Sundance festival. Less than a month later, Russia invaded Ukraine.
If we prod the filmmaker a little more when it comes to a reading of the conflict genre, Gorbach jumps: «Of course masculinity is associated with war.
I would even say that
the person responsible for this war
, whom I don't even want to mention by name because I try to forget about his existence, has
a misunderstood masculinity problem
.
If you look at his career, his entire career is moved by this idea of the man who rides into a town and kills everyone, as if it were the only possible path to heroism.
For this person, it is the only way to stay in history:
to ride a horse and conquer new lands
».
Everyone has in mind the image, very
western
, of Vladimir Putin riding bare-chested like a John Wayne with no hair... and no fear of sunstroke.
We would almost say Taràs Bulba, if the Cossack imagined by Gogol, and embodied by Yul Brinner on the big screen, had not been, precisely, a hero of the Ukrainian resistance, then threatened by Poland.
The problem, according to Er Gorbach, is that "Russia has killed its modern visionaries.
It is a country that does not want to know anything about progress and prefers to impose fear
.
It is a kingdom with a king, there is no more.
I was born in the USSR, and there are many things that have not changed: when I was little, my mother was a kindergarten teacher and she wanted me in her class.
To achieve this, she had to send a request to Moscow: the answer took two years to arrive », she recounts.
Er Gorbach, awarded for 'Klondike' at the Sundance festival and the Berlinale.
The multi-award-winning director defends that «Ukrainians, although we are fighting for the independence of our country, we have other values, we trust each other.
Nobody trusts anybody in Russia, and the problem is that they have ended up believing their own lies
.
Russian propaganda is no longer based on any great idea.
In USSR times there was at least a post-war logic: we have to stand!
Now there is no more logic than that he appears as the great leader of the Federation for all of history.
And this Federation should be truly federative, allowing all the countries that make it up to be truly independent, with their own economy, culture and language.
Obviously, this cannot be, for the moment, because the only policy is that of fear.
In the midst of a general enthusiasm for the escalation of arms, and the shipment of state-of-the-art tanks, the conflict seems to have no solution, and the Bertrand Russell-style pacifism that emerges from the Klondike seems increasingly utopian: «Unfortunately, we
are
in a logic of alliances between nations that, as the war in Ukraine shows, does not serve to protect each other.
This logic of increasingly powerful alliances only leads to bigger wars, it does not serve to stop them, and I do not understand what the objective of this globalized militarism is.
The only thing we are going to do is destroy each other.
Pacifism, even if it is a utopia, remains the only way.
The only hope is in families, in people who share the same values.
I am confident that in the future, people will come to live in Ukraine, not for economic reasons, but attracted by the values that we have defended
.
The only hope lies in a future where communities form around the values they hold in common.
But at the moment I don't see any solution.
Many people are going to have to die for the whole world to realize the drama of all this.
When you plant cucumbers in your garden, you can't expect roses to bloom
”, concludes Er Gorbach, referring to an old Ukrainian proverb.
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