‘Porcelain War’: Sundance Review

Dirs: Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev. US/Ukraine/Australia. 2023. 90mins

Cinematic essays take many forms: few are as fragile and contemplative as Porcelain War; all the more remarkable for the fact that Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev’s documentary observes the outbreak of war in Ukraine and its immediate aftermath during which Slava, an artisan porcelain maker, is seconded to train young recruits on how to use assault weaponry. Yet as his partner Anya Stasenko paints – and animates – their beautiful, ethereal, translucent objets, there is a sense of enduring beauty to fight for. 

A personal testament, almost like a moving scrapbook 

Destined for festivals and human rights events, Porcelain War is as delicate as Anya’s paintings. It is an unusual film which attempts to meld an intimate look at fine artists and artistry – story-telling within story-telling – during a time of war, and to stress why the stakes are so high in what these soldiers are trying to protect with their very lives. Suffused with the golden-hour nature of Kharkiv, the film also features music by Ukrainian force of sound DakhaBrakha which is not easily forgotten.

Porcelain War is shot by co-director Slava, his partner Anya but mostly by their close friend Andrey Stefanov, an exile from Crimea in 2014 now living with the childhood sweethearts and their bouncy dog Frodo outside Kharkiv. He has a talent for capturing the nature which Anya attempts to translate onto the small porcelain animals which Slava fires. ‘Porcelain is easy to break and impossible to destroy,’ say the couple, and the parallels with Ukraine are clear. 

Slava and Anya met as children –  he was literally in the pram – and reunited at art college, forming a personal and artistic bond to work together on their porcelain creations. Not quite specified in the film is how they used to split their time between Kharkiv and Crimea until 2014, when Russia annexed the latter. They never went back, but got their close friend Andrey and his young family out of the occupied zone and into the beautiful countryside outside Kharkiv. Now history is repeating itself. Andrey is sending his wife and two young daughters away from Ukraine for safety as the Russians pile on to neighbouring Bakhmut.

And Slava, whose patriotism extends to defending his country by bearing arms, is back training new recruits in what is becoming a more deadly, much more militarised war than anyone could have imagined. His squadron, Saigon, comprised of local tradesmen and one woman, risks life and limb, as video cam and drone footage attest.

Porcelain War is a personal testament, almost like a moving scrapbook which begins to add memories previously unimagined. Slava clears the mushroom-picking trails of unexploded weapons so locals can still carry on their daily lives; elsewhere, he targets Russian decoys with deadly force. They paint a drone, the Saigon drone, and send it on its way to kill. Anya, enabled by the umbrella of safety provided by the troops, continues with her art. 

And Andrey shoots film. The picture moves from nature and beauty into all that is un-natural. Drone footage is contrasted with a water-engorged forest at sunset; the yellows of the buds turn into the yellows and blues of flags flying on graves. And winter is coming. In the meantime DakhaBrakha’s sustained laments play as an integral part of the film. Traditional, defiant, soul-searching, this music helps underline all that is at stake.

It’s not clear precisely what date this testament ends but, at the time of writing, Kharkiv is under renewed attack. Which gives urgency to Slava’s warning to the viewer: “Evil will keep pushing until it reaches you.”