previously published on Cineuropa
Major historical events can also change the lives of marginalised people. One such person is the protagonist of Adelina Borets’ debut feature-length documentary Flowers of Ukraine: an elderly lady called Natalia who has probably spent all of her life on the fringes of society. The event in question is the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, which makes the premiere of Borets’ film, the opening movie in DOK Leipzig’s International Documentary Competition, a very timely one.
Borets opens her film with a series of shots of high-rises taken from ground level in a Kiev neighbourhood, followed by a reverse angle shot revealing the main seat of the action: a cluster of humble little houses which are basically shacks on a plot of land. One of these is occupied by Natalia, an elderly lady who’s full of life and who spends most of her time in her yard full of flowers, fruit and vegetables, where goats roam freely and chickens lay eggs. The atmosphere here is joyful and sees her living with a man of Russian origin nicknamed Kitty and often visited by her family members, including her teenage granddaughter Eva and her neighbours. The year is 2021, and the commune’s primary concern is a property development company’s attempts to drive them out in order to build a private kindergarten on their plot. Natalia sees her legal battle to keep her land as equal to the Ukrainian struggle to keep their language and faith during Soviet times.
Then, full-scale war breaks out and everything changes. Kitty tries to run away to Lviv, while Natalia is determined to stay on her land, for better or for worse. She doesn’t lose hope, and even joins the local territorial army on non-combat assignments, such as clearing rubble and providing help for those most in need. Her seemingly carefree attitude becomes an act of resistance towards a situation which is getting harder day by day.
Borets adopts the observational style and point of view of her protagonist, showing sympathy for Natalia and her causes without feeling the need to pass comment from an external position. The horrors of war unfold slowly and naturally, at the pace of Natalia’s own life, but there’s also a lot of poetry to be found in seemingly small and mundane things, such as blooming flowers, casual conversations and the cycle of life that goes on and provides optimism.
In this respect, special mention should definitely be given to cinematographers Bohdan Rozumnyi and Bohdan Borysenko, who always seem to be in the right place to capture what’s going on and to execute an array of impressive panning shots. The editing duo consisting of Agata Cierniak and Mateusz Wojtyński should also be congratulated for their tight work when it comes to highlighting the contrasts between the protagonist’s challenges and optimism, all with a sense of rhythm, at a moderate pace and within a restricted runtime of just 70 minutes. The DakhaBrakha quartet’s music, meanwhile, varying from joyful ethno to tense electronica, provides an emotional landscape to complement its visual one.
Ultimately, Flowers of Ukraine is a film about war and destruction. But more than that, it’s an ode to the honest and adamant human spirit and to life and nature which keeps on going, in spite of all hardship.