Quite a lot of nice cinema is made by blissful accidents: sure intangible chemistries and methods of timing that may’t be calculated even by probably the most exacting auteur. Within the significantly rarer case of “Real,” the entire movie is an accident, and another important than blissful. Shot inadvertently whereas director Oleh Sentsov — not working as a filmmaker, however as a lieutenant within the Ukrainian Protection Forces — was holed up together with his unit throughout a dangerous battle within the early days of the battle towards Russia, the movie captures the horror and claustrophobia of trench warfare with an immediacy that no big-budget fictional fight film may hope to match, all courtesy of a GoPro digital camera on Sentsov’s helmet that he by accident turned on whereas checking his tools.
The result’s each easy and laborious to categorise: In his director’s assertion for “Actual,” Sentsov guidelines out the phrases “movie” and “documentary,” although its cinematic pull and energy are plain to see. Any cynical notions that the filming could not have been as unintentional as said are thwarted by the relative lack of incident within the footage, which covers no specific crux level within the males’s plight as they anxiously await evacuation, and ends solely when the digital camera battery runs out. Which isn’t to say “Actual” needs for pressure or pressing human drama: Premiering on the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in wholly unedited type, Sentsov’s movie could not have the narrative breadth or shaping of latest Oscar winner “20 Days in Mariupol,” however stands beside it as a can’t-look-away dispatch from an ongoing atrocity.
Outdoors the tight remit of the movie itself, “Actual” additionally provides a compelling chapter to the storied profession of Sentsov himself — a Crimean-born filmmaker and activist whose 2014 arrest and subsequent imprisonment for his participation within the Maidan Rebellion prompted world protests and a 145-day starvation strike on his half, earlier than his eventual launch in 2019. Becoming a member of the Ukrainian military following Russia’s 2022 invasion could also be a fearless transfer from a person who’s already been to the brink, however Sentsov isn’t out to heroize himself in a movie basically shot from his standpoint. Clearly unseen all through, he’s a spare and pragmatic vocal presence, typically appearing as a curt middleman between the boys in his unit and the instructions given by way of a valuable working radio.
Trapped with them in a cramped, soil-strewn trench, we likewise can’t see something past it, although the juddering sounds of battle rage and ricochet above our heads. (Important credit score is owed to Igor Kazmirchuk for his vivid, unnerving sound post-production.) Progressively, nonetheless, as the boys change and relay phrases, we mentally work out the lay of the land. It emerges that Sentsov — codenamed “Grunt” all through — discovered shelter within the trench not lengthy after his tank was destroyed by Russian hearth. Assistance is on the way in which, although nobody can say precisely when; within the meantime, ammunition, water and different provides are working alarmingly low. What particulars and coordinates we are able to’t extract from scratchy radio bursts are made up for by the movie’s clammy atmospheric immersion — the concern, barely stifled within the drawn, harrowed faces captured on digital camera, that this unlovely hole is perhaps the final place they ever see.
Some rueful humor is to be discovered amid the panic. “The day after tomorrow, there’ll be a brand new plan and we’ll go to fucking Barcelona,” one soldier sighs. “And we’ll be fucked in Barcelona too, 100%.” There’s no macho army posturing right here, and the overriding temper within the trench seems to be one among despair and desperation, over a battle they’re nonetheless determining the way to combat. “Actual” (the codename of the army operation, however an apt title for the movie’s unmodified candor) serves as a testomony to their braveness in addition to their terror, although it’s hardly a vainglorious tribute — least of all when a closing title card bluntly refers to “the 22 Ukrainian troopers [who] stay at Actual eternally.” Sentsov lived to inform the story, or not less than to search out the footage. However there’s no finish, a lot much less any ethical, in sight simply but.
