LONDON – While “Volcano,” an award-winning Ukrainian film, has been out for a year, it made its debut in London on July 1 to great reviews and applause.
The fictional movie tells the story of an interpreter for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe who gets lost near Russian-occupied Crimea. The London premiere took place in Barbican, one of Great Britain’s most prestigious art centers.
“Volcano” features the travails of Kyiv resident Lukas, an interpreter for an OSCE team that goes to southern Kherson Oblast, on the border with Crimea, to examine Ukrainian customs and checkpoints.
The OSCE’s white Land Cruiser gets stuck in the fields because its engine stalled from poor quality petrol at a local gasoline station. Lukas’ boss sends him to ask for help. He returns to discover that the car and his colleagues are gone. The tale gets even more surreal.
“The OSCE mission is for me an embodiment of absurdity,” film director Roman Bondarchuk reflected.
The adventures that happen next place Lukas in a tiny Kherson village called Volcano, a “wild and forgotten place of anarchy,” as Bondarchuk described it.
The cinematographer is a native of Kherson, so was able to write a script depicting the region as he knows it. He portrayed his wife’s uncle, Vova, as another main character who comes to rescue Lukas, helpless to confront the realities of wild southern Ukraine.
“It is almost a family story. There are only two professional actors playing. All the rest are locals,” Bondarchuk said.
Ukraine’s wild south and its cowboys
The provincial region depicted shows private security groups guarding watermelon fields, many scrap metal collection points and the lack of civil authorities.
“It was a tremendous discovery for me that Ukraine’s province is torn from the capital to such an extent and the laws there are working that poorly,” Bondarchuk told the Kyiv Post. “Actually, this film is an attempt to initiate a dialogue between the capital and the province as well as to show how life in such a remote area looks in reality.”
The more that Lukas tries to escape from Kherson Oblast, the more troubles that visit him. The bus supposed to bring him home to Kyiv is attacked by a street gang, which pierces its tires. Lukas, wearing smart clothes and expensive wristwatch, ends up in the student accommodation center in the middle of the night to wait until the bus is repaired.
The party is in full swing and young women are trying to seduce him, one of them showing her breasts. He runs away, forgetting his suit with all the money and documents in it.
Lukas approaches the police station to report the loss and finds there two police officers watching a TV series about police officers. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s portrait is hanging on the wall behind them. The police do not help Lukas but instead arrest him.
Bondarchuk explained that the arrest was his satirical way of emphasizing two points: First, that some Ukrainian production companies still make the content for Ukraine and Russia even six years into the Kremlin’s war that has killed 13,000 Ukrainians; and second, that police reform has not reached Kherson Oblast.
“What police for heck’s sake? Honestly, it is a mix, because in some areas there were situations when the district police officer was suspended following the lustration, but a new one has not been appointed because nobody wants to take his place.”
Lukas keeps trying to get out of Kherson Oblast and takes the bus one more time. It stops, reaching watermelon fields, and Lukas gets beaten by private security guards patrolling the fields.
Vova, a local resident, saves Lukas’s life and provides him with shelter.
The war in focus
Military vehicles ride back and forth by country roads, helicopters pass overhead, and checkpoints are all around. The army calls young men for military service in the east, where the war clashes with Russian-backed soldiers.
Lukas and Vova attend a concert dedicated to raising money for body armor and helmets to equip the young men who are to be sent to the war soon.
The stunt man takes the stage – he putts a drill into his nose and lies on the sharp glass. As he performs, the audience put money into a jar.
“Our boys need body armor. Look at our boys, you want to preserve them for our girls, do you?” asks the event’s host and the cultural club’s director.
“Yes”, the audience shout.
“I do not hear you, volume up,” the host continues.
“Yes.”
This scene of the film astonished Londoner Nikki Gilberg, she told the Kyiv Post after the screening. “It was just heartbreaking,” Gilberg said.
‘Films should be honest’
“Volcano” has won nine awards so far.
“We have got mostly good reviews, but we also had a few quite complicated discussions afterward,” Bondarchuk said. “People were asking how the film advertises Ukraine and evokes patriotic feelings as it is partially financed by the state.”
Half of the film’s 10 million hryvnias budget was allocated by Derzhkino, the state film company. The rest was provided by foreign sources from Germany and Monaco.
According to the filmmaker, the local authorities were unhappy that Bondarchuk filmed Kherson Oblast’s roads as being in a poor condition.
“The task of the art, whether it sounds cliche or not, is to raise questions, to incite discussions and to draw the attention of the public to the painful aspects that should be in the light,” Bodnarchuk said. “The only way to make films is by being honest.”
The film had a positive impact. After it was screened in the region, the director of the cultural club, where the scene of fundraising event was shot, started a renovation, Bodnarchuk says.
Actors from watermelon fields
The film involved two professional actors. The majority of the roles in the film are played by local people with no experience in acting.
“First we held a casting in Beryslav [a city in Kherson Oblast]. Then, seeking more actors, we were traveling around visiting factories, farms, and fields. The fields appeared to be very convenient for holding a casting because there is always a foreman of the seasonal workers, who blows the whistle on demand and all the workers line up,” said Bondarchuk.
“This military discipline scares a bit, but helps it to quickly find an actor,” he continued.
Right after the film was pieced together, the authors showed it to the locals first.
“Before the Ukrainian premiere, we organized a proper screening with reception and wine,” says Bondarchuk. “People were shouting ‘ah, that is my neighbor,’ ‘it is me,’ ‘look at him.’ I am not sure they were even focused on the film itself, but they were happy. It was interesting, they started suggesting some ideas for a sequel.”
New East Cinema in London
“Volcano” was shown in London as part of New East Cinema, which is a project launched in 2015 by Olga Sova and headquartered in Barbican to bring innovative films from Eastern Europe to the United Kingdom. Every year they organize screenings for six films.
“We show various films from Eastern Europe, involving Ukraine. Previously we screened ‘School number 3,’” Sova told the Kyiv Post, referring to the Ukrainian documentary about teenagers from Donetsk Oblast, living next to the frontline.
“When I saw Roman’s ‘Volcano,’ I realized that he sees this reality in all its absurd aspects, but at the same time, he reflects on it all in a very optimistic way. To me, this film is kind and gives some hope that everything will be good despite,” Sova said. “This film infects with love for life, for people, for the land.”
Almost all the tickets to the film were sold out.
“This the very first Ukrainian film I have seen, but I actually loved it. I thought it was so kind of quirky – everything is unfolded in such a natural easy way. It was magnificent, I enjoyed it so much,” said graduate student Rufus Love.
Said Stephanie Farion: “I actually realized how uninformed am I on the situation in Ukraine.”
“I think maybe two years ago you were hearing a lot about this issue in the news and now it kind of dropped off and now I do not know what has changed and what is happening now,” she added. “It is a good way for the Western audience to start thinking about Ukraine and what is happening there again.”
