20 Days in Mariupol

3 years

Today is the third anniversary of Movie Night—one hundred and fifty-six movie recommendations down, who knows how many to go. While considering the span of time in which this newsletter has existed, and thinking about films that could help me better process the passage of this time, I found that Movie Night’s anniversary coincides within weeks of an anniversary that is actually worth our attention: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which took place on February 24th of 2022. For almost one hundred and sixty weeks, Ukraine has been fighting against being swallowed up by a dictatorship, and for about eighteen weeks, they’ve been doing it without clear support from the USA, a country that despite its wealth and success on the world stage seems determined to prove that our moral clarity in WWII was a fluke.

20 Days in Mariupol (2024) takes us back to the beginning of the invasion, as Russian tanks are first rolling over the borders of Ukraine. Here’s a recent map of the region, from the BBC:

Planes start to fly lower, bombs and missiles scream through the sky, and the ordinary people living in this ordinary city pay the price. 20 Days in Mariupol is not an easy watch, but it is an essential watch for the times in which we live. How often do we have the chance to look into the face of injustice being committed in real-time? Don’t wait for the film to become a historical relic to absorb its prescient message. In one scene, the journalists/filmmakers look out of a building as the tanks roll in. The streets look no different than a Chicago suburb in the winter. In another scene, a woman cries to the camera: “My son is at work, where am I supposed to go?” as a bus makes a stop behind her. Again, the locale is almost indistinguishable from an American suburb. Cars go on their way, telephone poles stand at varying angles, and vinyl-sided houses are spaced evenly, separated by hastily snow-shoveled driveways. While this commonality with our own country shouldn’t be the basis of empathy for a people under siege, maybe if you can convince someone who doesn’t see the importance of supporting Ukraine to watch this, it will help sway them. Life, literally as we know it, is at stake.

Early in the film we see video of Vladimyr Putin speaking on the local news, saying that Ukraine isn’t being invaded to take territory: it’s “self-defense.” Ah, what a common refrain these days from people in power. Misinformation is free speech. Deportation is aid. Invasion is self-defense. Monopoly is consolidation. Maybe there isn’t much direct action we can take on the injustice our country continues to make possible, but there is a way to tell someone how you feel, and if enough people do this, it could make a difference.

And this is what makes films like 20 Days in Mariupol worth watching. They can awaken action in people that may have spent the night on the couch. They give us a window, even if it’s one we don’t enjoy looking through, into the rest of the world, and make the compassionate among us consider how to help. If it reminds you of feelings you may have had when you a younger idealistic person, then it’s making you younger. In one genuinely harrowing scene of the film, a doctor realizes the press is in the hospital room as he is trying to revive a child. He shouts at the camera: “Film how these motherfuckers are killing civilians. Show this Putin bastard the eyes of this child and all of these doctors that are crying. Show it. It’s good that the press is here. Keep filming.”

“You get used to everything, but then in the evening, it doesn’t leave your mind.”

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20 Days in Mariupol
Directed by Mstylav Chernov
2023
94 minutes
Ukrainian, English, Russian
Recommended way to watch (at time of publication): Stream for free on Youtube or on Hoopla with a public library card.