Porcelain War

Many of the documentaries that have emerged from Ukraine since the Russian incursion in 2022 - including Intercepted and The Invasion - have celebrated acts of everyday resistance in the country as much as lamenting Vladimir Putin’s aggression.

Porcelain War joins them, standing alongside David Gutnik’s Rule Of Two Walls as an examination of the work artists in Ukraine are doing to preserve their culture as well as repel the enemy forces.

In the case of Slava Leontyev, he is waging war on both fronts, maintaining his day job while also training people to fight. He and his life partner Anya Stasenko are artists by trade. Slava, who directs the film with US filmmaker Brendan Bellomo, carefully creates delicate creatures out of porcelain - from owls to more fantastical dragons - which Anya then intricately paints with miniature nature scenes.The connection of the fragility of the finished pieces and the country itself is directly drawn in a voice-over but you sense that this isn’t to over-emphasise the point to viewers but because the sentiment comes from deep in the heart.

A tactile and colour-infused film from the start, the images captured by Leontyev, Stasenko and their close friend Andrey Stefanov, emphasise the beautiful flora and fauna of Ukraine. You can almost smell the foraged mushrooms we see later while the irrepressible energy of Anya and Slava’s dog Frodo is infectious. Magic hour shots give the woodlands around Kharkiv a honeyed glow, although we see that it isn’t poisonous fungi gatherers need to be wary of but unexploded Russian ordnance, which Slava carefully monitors.

Animations play out over Anya’s creations as the war and its impact are considered. We also see how her work brings cheer to Slava’s Saigon squadron - men and women who have left their day jobs as furniture sales people, business analysts and the like to take up arms in defence of their country. Several of them turn one of the finished animals in their hand, as talking about it offers respite from the conflict. Anya also paints a drone so it looks like a red striped insect, a mark of defiance as it heads on its missions. Defiance is also present in the vocal soundtrack from folk music quartet DakhaBrakha. While occasionally threatening to overwhelm the film’s more contemplative moments, it also has a force of nature heft.

Andrey’s wife and daughters have had to leave the country, bringing home the sense of loss and uncertainty experienced by many Ukrainian families even if their loved ones are alive.

Conflict is never far away in Porcelain War, whether it’s the drone going about its mission to target Russian troops, or the Saigon squadron coming under fire. “We’re ordinary people in an extraordinary situation,” someone notes. They are shown to be facing it with extraordinary courage and resourcefulness.