2000 Meters to Andriivka evaluate: An unflinching have a look at the brutality of struggle
Ukrainian director and journalist Mstyslav Chernov has returned to Sundance Movie Pageant together with his follow-up to twenty Days in Mariupol, which gained over Sundance in 2023 and finally went on to win the Oscar for Finest Documentary Function. 2000 Meters to Andriivka, his new documentary has now gained him the Directing Award. This new chapter is not any much less intense, no easier to look at. It throws the viewer right into a first-person documentation of Ukrainian troopers taking cautious steps in direction of a village as a way to free it from Russian occupation. (Additionally learn: André is an Fool evaluate: A superb, life-affirming documentary of a person battling most cancers)
The premise
In 2000 Meters to Andriivka, we’re thrust instantly into the litter, the dust and absolute horrors of the troopers strategizing their subsequent transfer within the hidden trenches via their helmet digital camera footage. Together with journalist colleague Alex Babenko, Chernov follows these troopers as they take orders, cover within the floor, and plan their subsequent step as explosions go off constantly within the background. Right here too, Chernov’s chilly and fuss-free voiceover informs the viewer the place they’re headed. Surrounded by mines and accessible solely via a tiny sliver patch of land, there lies the village of Andriivka, Ukraine.
The mission? The troopers should increase the Ukrainian flag within the act of displaying energy by taking this small trek, the place each step is a possible deathtrap. It sounds ludicrous from the skin however every thing’s truthful in struggle, and they also should accomplish this aim. “So what are we combating for?” asks Chernov. “To rebuild it,” says a soldier. With out a motive, there can be no approach out. There isn’t a different selection.
What works
Nightmarish and extremely visceral, 2000 Meters to Andriivka is unflinching in its depiction of the horrors of struggle. The banality of this mission is a subtext that Chernov doesn’t wish to spotlight. In reality, it doesn’t have to be acknowledged out, as lives of those courageous troopers are risked for the sake of this mission. Which is stunning and unbelievable at instances. Throughout a hide-out, when they’re getting ready for his or her subsequent transfer, Chernov asks a few of these younger males how they grew to become troopers. The solutions are matter-of-fact of their embedded optimism. The voiceover will then inform, in crushing existential unhappiness, that this soldier won’t be discovered after the following mission.
The sense of ennui which develops because the troopers advance in direction of Andriivka supplies this documentation its important emotional pull. Chernov’s dedication to deliver the ugly, unvarnished reality is extraordinary. The pictures and sounds burn themselves in reminiscence. That being mentioned, I used to be cautious of a few of the further music by Sam Slater that underscores the scenes many a instances. It tends to distill a particular kind of response that definitely might have been saved in test.
2000 Meters to Andriivka is a revelatory and extremely humane portrait of the devastation and brutality of struggle. There is no silver lining in the best way a few of these males die. There cannot be. Chernov informs what he sees, what he is aware of to be true. And so, we should witness it too.
Santanu Das is protecting Sundance Movie Pageant 2025 as a part of the accredited press.
