Under the Grey Sky (2024) Tribeca 2024

This is the factual based story of a reporter who was arrested for reporting on protests in Belarus. As she is confined in prison, her husband waits and refuses to leave the country and his wife.

Moving like the wind, the film runs just over 80 minutes, UNDER THE GREY SKY begins with a kick as sequence as Lena and her camerawoman live stream an anti government protest from a high rise. As they do so the government catches wind and begins to look for them. From that point the film film switches to the story of Ilya, Lena's husband who is in danger himself, if for no other reason than the government threatens Lena with his arrest if she doesn't renounce her stance.

It's a heart breaking tale of political abuse and the things we do for the one's we love. 

While the story highlights an all too common one occurrence these days, the way it's told is anything but common. Telling the story from the point of view of Ilya adds dimensions that we don't usually see. Normally stories like this are told from the prisoner or lawyer's perspective, but here we are given a new focus, one that allows us to remain connected to the central tale while also allowing us to see shades and sides of political abuse we don't usually see.

Most importantly, while we know this isn't going to end happily, we are still held in the tight grip of suspense since we don't know how it will all play out.

Recommended.

Motherland (2023) CPX DOX

MOTHERLAND is troubling film. The film is a look at the systematic bullying that came out of the Russian/Soviet Military decades ago and which has filtered into many Eastern European societies. In the case of this film Belarus. We watch as we see the effects of the bullying on the recruits going into the army, the men who flee from it and the survivors of those that were bullied to death.

A deliberately paced film MOTHERLAND is a trip into Belarus. Its a film where things happen at their own pace and where moments that seem to be extraneous at the start end up having a kick later on. This is a finely tuned film that is very much intent in making us feel what is happening to the people and the country thanks to the vicious traditions of the military.

There is a sadness here. We watch as a mother tries to get justice for her dead son and finds that the system is stack against her. We hear the words of a soldier writing home to his mother  and witness the change from a good boy into an abuser happens. We also watch as some young men turn their backs on the torment and end up fleeing their country. Things are not for the better anywhere along the line.

Beautifully shot and possessing an amazing sense of place MOTHERLAND truly changes our world view by changing where we are in the world.  So many sequences lift us out of the theater and put us in a place where we have to confront life in a country on the other side of the world. It is an amazing achievement and if there is any justice this film should get many technical awards in addition to ones for the film as a whole.

And it should get awards for the entire film because ultimately MOTHERLAND is disturbing film. It's a film that requires us to more fully engage with the world and understand the darkness that is driving the world.

Highly recommended.

GENERATION 328 (2020) DOC NYC

 

A look at mothers in Belarus whose children have been locked away under the countries draconian antidrug laws- the section of the code is 328.

Bracing portrait of what one mother calls the last dictatorship in Europe. The film is heartbreaking look at mothers who are fighting to just see their kids, as well as keep them safe (we watch one mother call the person to check on her son who is in solitary confinement).

I was moved. Recommended

I would be curious to see more on the subject and Belarus itself.

1986 (2019) Slamdance 2020

After her father is arrested, a young woman takes over his business f running into and out of the exclusion zone around the Chernobyl nuclear plant. This seems to mirror a disintegration in her personal life.

Director Lothar Herzog has made a film that sneaks up on you and jumps you from behind. As I write this several days have passed and I find that while I have seen perhaps a dozen other films that are playing Slamdance, Herzog's film is the one that I am still thinking of. It is a film of quiet power that haunts your psyche.

I think a large part of why the film works is actress Daria Mureeva as Elena. She pulls us close from the opening sequence where she is simply talking to her boyfriend straight on to the end. We can feel every emotion in every sequence, we sense what she is thinking even in the quiets moment and she makes us a co-conspirator. It is a powerful performance that hopefully will get her bigger roles.

It also helps a great deal that director Herzog masterfully moves Ms Mureeva through the story. While I could talk about a great many things that he does wonderfully I would like to simply focus on how he uses the landscape as a character. Watch as in the sequences in the cities the camera is in close, Mureeva is a large presence, and contrast it to how as she goes into the exclusion zone she becomes smaller and smaller. Her life and circumstance are devouring her- until in the end she completely disappears.

I am in awe of the skill of the filmmakers and the actors.

I should warn you that on the face of it 1986 is a small film. However while it is not big and flashy  it is a film that packs serious punch. It is a film that haunts you and gets under you skin.  It is a quiet masterpiece.