The movie « Two Sisters » is a trip to the Ukrainian cliches from the Polish border. Review – publications
The movie « Two Sisters » of the Polish director Lukash Karvovsky was released. It is a family roud-muvi drama about the modern Ukrainian war, which tells about two Polish sisters-Yashmin and Malgozhat. Upon learning that their volunteer father had been in trouble in Ukraine, they are forced to go for his rescue. The tape was already shown in Ukraine, it opened last year’s Molodist Film Festival.
Film Criticine UP. Culture of Sonya Allly The director criticizes the possibilities of creating a deeper portrait of Polish and Ukrainian characters, and instead he warmly remembers the films of Antonio Lukich.
At the beginning of the movie, we see a woman who spends the evening at the Warsaw Night Club. Having danced in one hall and smoking a cigarette in another, she suddenly rushes to the hospital building. Having met the girl there in a white coat, she sharply states that they urgently need to save their father from Ukraine – a volunteer who has suffered serious injuries at the front. The sisters are not delighted with the prospect of a joint trip, and the conversation quickly gained tension.
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Do not be afraid that the review begins with a metered spoiler, because all this happens in the first four minutes of the movie, when we do not know almost nothing about the heroine. Thus, the director actually makes it clear that he will not spend effort on the exposition, and automatically puts the viewer in the position of a stranger witness of another drama, not an interested observer. With a rhythm, faster than in a television sieve, the tape goes to the trip, and the director himself to the use of Road-Muvi genre tools.
In its idea, this genre has a high cinematic potential, from which you can squeeze an incredible emotional depth. The main driver of the plot in such movies is the trip. It is necessarily full of fun and dangerous adventures, which are forced to coexist two extravagant and contrasting personalities. Due to difficulties and conflicts, the characters open, get to know each other better and, as a result, form a strong connection. In the cinema, we saw it many times – from the cult Telma and Louise « Ridley Scott to » Luxembourg, Luxembourg « Antonio Lukich.
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Such films can really capture – provided that they get into the right director’s hands, because the characters should be of genuine interest so that the viewer wants to go with them this path. In Lukich, for example, the story was saturated with complexly constructed, ambivalent characters with a deep exposition, and most importantly – the director devoted considerable attention to the figure of the father, around which, in fact, the entire drama of the long road unfolded.
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But in the « two sister », except for the coarse dichotomy « Tusovshchytsya VS Doctor », this is not. The director loses script opportunities, relying on the usual genre templates, where it is almost clear from the beginning how relationships between the polar heroines will develop.
Yashmina and Malgozhata are more reminiscent of generalized types of roud-muwi-there is nothing deeper in the superficially written hostility between them. Their family quarrels are limited to talking about financial difficulties and hints at a problematic relationship with their father. It also looks like minor characters.
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The tape shows a good initial idea – to speak a mediator between Poland and Ukraine from the point of view of a stranger. Instead of sending heroes to Europe, how many directors of documentary and game cinema about the war in Ukraine have done many, Karvovsky was carrying Poles to Ukraine. This, of course, deserves respect as an attempt to offer an alternative view of Ukrainians in the state of affect, already in their territory.
The director himself said that the idea of the film arose after observing Polish and Ukrainian children on the playground. It seems that it was there that his research of Ukrainians ended.
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Traveling to the East, the heroines meet different Ukrainians. These characters are supposed to be discovered for Jashmina and Malgozhay Ukraine, the nature of war and the rules of survival in it. But if the main characters suffer from script surface, then Ukrainians, in addition, from the obsessive clichés, which are based on an attempt to reproduce portraits of society of different varieties.
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What really pleases in the movie is the appearance of some of the best Ukrainian actors trying to pull out the plot on their shoulders. In addition to the positive appearance of Irma Vitovskaya, the tape can be seen and at the same time upset by Alexander Rudinsky. He plays a loud and cartoon rural fool, whether it is drunk or a patient with epilepsy. However, it is its appearance, despite the grotesque, adds at least some drama that develops relationships between the main characters.
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« Two Sisters » is also perhaps the first game movie shot in locations after the start of a full -scale invasion. Remember Our recent interview with Polish director Damian Kotsur, who confessed that he had no moral right to shoot about the war, so he postponed it to his own, European territory.
In the case of two sisters, on the contrary, the director transfer the Poles to the Ukrainian land, removing against the background of even fresh destruction. The movie reminds us of discourse around Bucha’s tapes Stanislav Tiunov. Although « two sister » no spectacular violence, an ethical discussion about shooting game cinema during the war and in the territories that testify to it remains equivalent to it.
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Instead of the conclusion, it is a rhetorical question: who is the movie designed for? Social networks, documentary, and most importantly – the real experience of the Poles in the context of war give a much deeper and multidimensional idea than what is shown in this tape. Meanwhile, the Ukrainian viewer, at best, will be detached, and in the worst – will be offended by the limited and distortion of images.
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So if you are looking for a sincere and fascinating roud-muvi this weekend, look at Antonio Lukich’s films better (translate).
