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| Images courtesy of PBS Frontline |
Last week the new A24 film Civil War, Alex Garland’s
somber ode to the struggle of the photojournalist pushing towards certain death
to document the unfolding events of a military conflict, opened to divided and
shocked audiences still processing the filmmaker’s post-apocalyptic fable. In no uncertain terms does it make clear,
whatever side you’re on, the importance of the documentary photographic medium as
well as a testament to the bravery of those venturing into dangerous if not
deadly situations to capture the truth. While
footage can be edited to form a particular narrative or persuasion in the
documentary form, actually getting the material into the camera and editing
suite for many of these kinds of photojournalism projects remain a Herculean
task. For as hard as some of these films
can be to watch, consider what it must’ve been like to witness and film it
firsthand.
Which brings us to last year’s Oscar winning Ukrainian produced and directed documentary film 20 Days in Mariupol by Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov. Born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, the photojournalist initially started as a fine art photographer where he gained national recognition in 2013 when he found himself in the middle of the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, Turkey and decided to shift to documentary news reporting on wartime conflicts. It was around this change in direction the filmmaker found himself at the epicenter of the Euromaiden protests in Kyiv, Ukraine where he was attacked and injured several times, including but not limited to suffering leg and eye injuries from a stun grenade and shrapnel.
As the Ukrainian Revolution segued into the annexation of Crimea and the War in Donbas, Chernov, PBS Frontline and the associated press couldn’t help but continue to film the unfolding events through the COVID-19 pandemic before the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. When news of the invasion broke out, Chernov and his cameraman fellow Ukrainian filmmaker Evgeniy Maloletka decided to venture to Mariupol figuring it to be one of the main targets. But as Chernov himself remarks in voiceover narration throughout, no one could’ve imagined the scale or that the entire country would be under attack.
Which brings us to last year’s Oscar winning Ukrainian produced and directed documentary film 20 Days in Mariupol by Pulitzer Prize and Academy Award winning filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov. Born in Kharkiv, Ukraine, the photojournalist initially started as a fine art photographer where he gained national recognition in 2013 when he found himself in the middle of the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul, Turkey and decided to shift to documentary news reporting on wartime conflicts. It was around this change in direction the filmmaker found himself at the epicenter of the Euromaiden protests in Kyiv, Ukraine where he was attacked and injured several times, including but not limited to suffering leg and eye injuries from a stun grenade and shrapnel.
As the Ukrainian Revolution segued into the annexation of Crimea and the War in Donbas, Chernov, PBS Frontline and the associated press couldn’t help but continue to film the unfolding events through the COVID-19 pandemic before the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. When news of the invasion broke out, Chernov and his cameraman fellow Ukrainian filmmaker Evgeniy Maloletka decided to venture to Mariupol figuring it to be one of the main targets. But as Chernov himself remarks in voiceover narration throughout, no one could’ve imagined the scale or that the entire country would be under attack.
Searing, horrific beyond description, permanently life altering once witnessed and finally at a loss of words itself for what is still happening overseas, 20 Days in Mariupol assembled piecemeal as the invasion unfolded from whatever bits Chernov and his crew could transfer digitally out of a crushed grocery store is an extraordinary piece of photojournalism that presents wartime atrocities never thought possible. As an avid watcher of documentaries that often touch on difficult subjects with graphic imagery for years, I’ve never seen infant children die before and it happens several times in this. Filmed and uploaded in crisp 4K digital, capturing the bombing of the Mariupol maternity hospital No. 3 and the unfolding aftermath of that catastrophe, bearing witness to tanks firing cannons upon apartment complexes and residential buildings, the unfolding Hell is almost too much to process. The first time you see it, there is no way around it: you are not the same person anymore before you watched it.
And yet this unfathomable horror, this white elephant in the room of conversation among friends, family and filmgoers is both vital and outside of the still-present conflict between Russia and Ukraine a remarkable piece of filmmaking. Though detractors and skeptics are quick to point out comparative photos used in montages to discredit the piece and there are times when Chernov does use artistic innovative filmmaking harkening back to his still photography days, the visceral and emotional onslaught of harrowing terrors and encroaching danger is hard to ignore. As a film, whether it be a wartime documentary or a testament to the human will to survive, it comes down a hill from afar like a boulder you see getting bigger and bigger before it rolls you over.
Going on to become the first Ukrainian film to win an Academy Award, the most commercially successful Ukrainian documentary in cinema history and uploaded for free to YouTube through PBS Frontline, 20 Days in Mariupol is perhaps the most difficult film I’ve ever come to grips with let alone try and write about. How do you talk about what you’ve seen in this with someone else? Should you recommend it? How do you process the evolving reality of modern warfare? No longer something seen from footage from the early 2000s, it is like a new species of perfected animal unleashed upon the unsuspecting world. How do we deal with it?
The film doesn’t have all the answers and it is hard to know where and how this conflict will end up or be resolved. But, in seeing the aforementioned Alex Garland science-fiction horror fable on Monday, it was impossible not to think of 20 Days in Mariupol and the uphill battle of life and death lived by photojournalists such as Mstyslav Chernov. Whatever side of the conflict you’re on, you have to have a certain amount of admiration and respect for those who are capturing it firsthand for the rest of the world to see. Brutal and uncompromising and not even remotely for the faint-hearted it is almost impossible to shake free from your mind. In fact most people easily distressed by images of warfare are inclined to avoid this altogether. But as a piece of modern day photojournalism it is thoroughly captivating, devastatingly painful and in its way an enlightening documentary experience. If you decide to proceed through the gates of Hell yourself, hopefully you’ve been more than thoroughly warned about what lies ahead. Unwatchable yet unmissable.
--Andrew Kotwicki