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| Images courtesy of Ukrainian Films USA |
Amid the ongoing struggles with the Russo-Ukrainian war, in
spite of everything the Ukraine film industry continues to press on ahead with new
productions as well as restorations through their Dovzhenko Film outfit as well
as securing releases internationally for theatrical exhibition via the
distributor Ukrainian Films USA which continues to sponsor films throughout the
country for the viewing public. Their
last two offerings shown at the local Troy MJR Theater consisted of the
artistic biographical drama Malevych as well as the supernatural
Christmas comedy The Guardians of Christmas, two films that couldn’t be
more different tonally which nevertheless touched on the ongoing battles at the
frontline through allusion and inference.
While both films were indelible slices of modern Ukrainian cinema, their
newest release in the form of a solitary yet romantic science-fiction odyssey U
Are the Universe from newcomer Pavlo Ostrikov in his writing-directing
debut seems to have taken the expectations of Ukrainian movies to unforeseen
emotional as well as uncompromising intellectual heights.
Made in 2024 amid the war in collaboration with Belgium and the Ukrainian State Film Agency, U Are the Universe follows Andriy (Volodymyr Kravchuk) an interstellar space trucker in a centrifuge spinning space station on a routine trip trying to while away the boredom of working alone alongside his talking shipboard computer Maxim (voiced by Leonid Popadko). One morning he is awakened with the terrible and incomprehensible news that the Earth has seemingly exploded and that he is the last human being left in the universe. It doesn’t take long for Earth debris to strike and irreparably damage his ship with only a matter of time before useful supplies on board start running out. While grappling with the information, teetering between anger and an unusual sense of freedom as he blasts away with his vinyl records in space and makes coffee, a mysterious email appears in his inbox. Upon opening it, it’s a human voice of a French astronaut named Catherine (voiced by Alexia Depicker). As his ship drifts past Jupiter, he learns her space station near Saturn is drifting into orbit and in a matter of time she will die, prompting Andriy with his renewed sense of purpose and emotional connection to perhaps the only other human life left in the universe to try and fly what’s left of his broken down ship over to meet and perhaps save her.
Made in the tradition of solitary space science fiction films as Silent Running, Moon, The Fountain or even Solaris which it directly references at one point by title, while allegorical for trying to maintain human connection in the worst or most isolating of situations ala the ongoing Ukraine war it functions brilliantly as a standalone space fantasy with echoes of Kubrick and Tarkovsky. Take for instance a comic homage mid-movie where space debris is drifting towards the ship as a result of the Earth’s explosion and our hero on a spacewalk notices a red chair drifting towards him, a quick and easy replacement for his broken-down captain’s chair. Turns out it is the very same red chair seen on the centrifuge of Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Just in case we’re not sure if we got it, the theme song Also Sprach Zarathustra blares on the soundtrack which couldn’t help but prompt a big appreciative laugh from the crowd. Later still in a moment that caught me off guard, the track Voyage Voyage by Desireless (a track I first heard in the Swedish drama Compartment No. 6) is sneakily worked in and later reprised again sung by Catherine in an evocative passage.
Performance wise, though a minimal cast with mostly voice acting involved, Volodymyr Kravchuk perfectly inhabits the role of Andriy the sad and lonely astronaut just trying to make it through another day. Also powerful in a kind of Her way is the voice of Catherine by Alexia Depicker who makes the mysterious woman initially chipper and confident but over time herself begins to express her woes about the hopelessness of their situation. The film is funny and there’s a wealth of comic timing involved, but mostly this is a somber tearjerking romance with subtle hints of desperation lingering throughout the saga. Also strong as the voice of reason trying to make adult human decisions for the troubled and perhaps maddening Andriy is Leonid Popadko voicing Maxim the shipboard computer, channeling notes of Gerty from Moon as well as TARS from Interstellar. If there is one shortcoming to the film in its marvelous effects sequences, it is that many passages do closely resemble the Christopher Nolan epic. That said, the production design by Kyrylo Rybiantsev is splendid and recurring music video cinematographer (Lenny Kravitz and Jennifer Lopez among his collaborations) Nikita Kuzmenko and an increasingly moody and ambient score by prolific composer Mykyta Moiseiev help round out the film just enough that it becomes its own animal and not just a pastiche of the sci-fi greats.
Winner of four Ukrainian Film Critics Awards including Best Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, Discovery of the Year and Best Actor Volodymyr Kravchuk, U Are the Universe is the kind of science-fiction film that is both broadly appealing to global audiences with a relatable romantic space drama while also being indigenous to Ukrainian viewership. Of the fictional films I’ve seen coming out of Ukraine this year it is perhaps the most subtly affecting, a movie that continues to win awards at international film festivals including the Paris International Fantastic Film Festival and the Trieste Science + Fiction Festival and the US Boston Science Fiction Film Festival. At once funny and quietly devastating, U Are the Universe isn’t the easiest sci-fi film experience. While not nearly as harmful as say, Claire Denis’ High Life in the annals of independent international space science-fiction sagas or as mournful as Andrei Tarkovsky’s Solaris, emotionally U Are the Universe is posited somewhere between heartfelt and heavy. The contextual romantic longings of the film echo the desperation and isolation felt by Ukraine allegorically while also being a straightforward broadly appealing science-fiction meditation on love through painful and harsh cabin fever. Easily the best Ukrainian film I saw in a movie theater this year since Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors.
--Andrew Kotwicki