Donbass (ДОНБАСС). 2018. Germany/Ukraine/France/Netherlands/Romania. Written and directed by Sergei Loznitsa. DCP courtesy Film Movement. In Ukrainian, Russian; English subtitles. 121 min.
Nothing and no one is to be believed in Donbass, Sergei Loznitsa’s withering look at the absurdities, venalities, and treacheries of life during wartime in a corrupt, besieged country. Kleptocrats, plutocrats, war merchants, criminal gangs, charity organizers, religious charlatans—everyone seems to be skimming from the national till while the sheer randomness of land mines, stray bullets, and accusations of fascism and treason instils terror in the lives of ordinary Ukrainians living on the eastern front. Drawing on real-life amateur videos, clichés of war photojournalism, and the structure of Luis Buñuel’s satirical The Phantom of Liberty (1974), Loznitsa’s portmanteau movie opens with a staged reenactment of a bus attack meant to be packaged and broadcast as real reportage—is it actually staged?—and then segues into scenes of social Darwinism: a party boss who has stolen the ultrasound machine from a local maternity hospital (as well as all the Snickers bars), a bloodthirsty mob that sets upon an accused collaborator, a burlesque wedding of pro-Russian separatists in the self-proclaimed breakaway state of Novorossiya. And while Loznitsa pulls no punches in depicting the shameless corruptibility of his native Ukraine and the villany of those who seek to occupy it, this is merely a stand-in for the moral turpitude of all modern nations where profiteering overshadows the very real suffering of ordinary families facing violence and displacement, the disposable “extras” in this cruel farce.