Trenches | 2021 Venice Film Festival Review

Gone to Graveyards: Bureau Mines the Surreal Tragedy of Ongoing Ukrainian Conflict

Ukrainian auteur Sergei Loznitsa has, heretofore, presented the most comprehensive cinematic examinations of the Ukrainian revolution, which grew out of the 2013/2014 Euromaidan protests. His films contend with the continually rippling aftermath from these protests, both in the immediacy of his 2014 documentary Maidan and the masterful narrative feature Donbass (2018). French journalist Loup Bureau joins the conversation with his debut documentary Trenches, which follows a handful of frontline Ukrainian soldiers responsible for the Sisyphean feat of reconstructing the eponymous dugouts as the violent conflict with Russian-backed separatists rages on. Successfully putting a human face on a situation which continues despite outlasting its shelf-life on the 24-hour news media cycle, Bureau captures an intimacy and rough hewn beauty in a fantastically photographed document on the significant collateral damage.

The conflict in Donbas, Ukraine continues, with Ukrainian soldiers subjected to a standoff with separatists backed by Russia. While the initial onslaught resulted in the annexation of Crimea, and a supposedly established ceasefire, the lines have literally been drawn in the sand, with both sides digging WWI style trenches. Continually, these demarcations are bombed out and rebuilt, with no end in sight. A gently guided portrait of lives, hopes, and conversations amongst a group of soldiers, some survivors, some new recruits, unfolds in jumps and starts.

As Trenches all-too-briefly outlines, the Ukrainian revolution, born out of the 2014 Maidan uprising, led to a supposed ceasefire and eventual stalemate between the separatists and Ukrainians, a situation still defining the Donbas region. In between bombings, Bureau focuses on the camaraderie of these frontline soldiers. Mourning the loss of relationships back home, the lack of authentic friendships in their lives as young adults, these men and women exist in melancholy limbo, but a tenuous daily rhythm descends.

The cleaning of weaponry is the sobering reality juxtaposed with their penchant for violent video games, where Mortal Kombat feels like an eerie training mechanism. By default, Oxana stands out as one of the only women, and the crisp cinematography lends Trenches a sense of Neo-realism. Dogs and kittens provide a small sense of creature comfort, while the brief mentions of God suggest there’s faith in his existence, “but he’s in hiding.”

There’s a distancing mechanism with the black-and-white cinematography, collapsing time-capsule semantics with contemporary violent conflict. Bureau switches this up with when the soldiers go on leave, wondering how they’ll be able to acclimate to civilian life during a brief respite. Colorful nightclub sequences feel muted in comparison to their stark tours in the dirt. Bitterly, some of them resent the reality of the situation, aware of how a continual support of Russia from some countries, driven by oil and gas, assists in keeping this violent standoff alive and well. “We’re at war for others in a video game,” one comments.

A visual personification of Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, we’re reminded of the surreal immediacy of Bureau’s footage when they’re interrupted by bombings, in one case forcing a break in continuity, fast forwarding two months later. Lives are lost, new recruits ushered in. And the stand off resumes, which Bureau’s film credits as ‘the last conflict on European soil.’ Although this overlooks some of the clandestine genocides continually waged against minorities (such as the gay purge in Chechnya or Lukashenko’s iron grip Belarus), it’s a reminder of the ease in which the world looks away in favor of exploiting fresh carnage.

Reviewed on September 2nd at the 2021 Venice Film Festival – Out of Competition. 85 Mins

★★★½/☆☆☆☆☆