Rule Of Two Walls

The war in Ukraine has many battlezones - and as David Gutnik’s documentary shows, not all of them involve picking up guns. That is not to say the Ukrainian-American filmmaker shies away from the horrors of war - some of the footage here involves dead bodies, including those of children, which may prove too much for some audiences.

The main focus of the film, however, is the creative community that has remained in the country since the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. As the film progresses, and these artists and filmmakers articulate their response to the conflict both verbally and through their work, Gutnik also interrogates the importance of culture when it comes to establishing and preserving nationhood.

Although not named as they are introduced on screen - a decision that no doubt stems from the flexible nature of the filmmaking here but which is a bit of a shame nonetheless - we will meet artists, craftspeople and musicians who are taking a stand in their own way against Russia’s aggression. Among them is Stepan Burban, whose music is a cri du coeur of anger and defiance. Alongside him is his partner Lyana Mytsko, who is the director of the Municipal Art Center in Lviv, which has become a hub for artistic resistance.

Gutnik establishes the climate they are operating within from the start as an air raid siren shrieks angrily across the streets of Lviv. Through the taped windows, however, people largely continue to go about the business of living even with this threat of death. This spirit of continuence is echoed in an exhibition, Shelter, by artist Diane Berg, which features work with large black crosses over it.

Mytsko notes, “You realise that you can’t change anything”, but there is far from an air of desondency about the response to the Russian aggression. Through the course of his film Gutnik captures the way that anger against Putin’s imperialist attitude has fuelled a wave of art. Also among those offering a response is illustrator Bogdana Davydiuk, whose street art announces to the Russian aggressors, “We hid our monuments because we don’t want them to see your shame”. We see that process of swaddling structures in sandbags to protect them, another indication of how important cultural touchstones are to a sense of collective national identity.

Gutnik explores the importance of language, with the director noting that though he is of Ukrainian heritage, it’s Russian that he learnt as a child, another imperialist tactic, controlling by stealth. We also see a literal Russian whitewashing of history in an apartment, where its former Ukrainian decoration is now being restored.

The rule of two walls refers to the advice given to preserve life during an air raid - to head for a hallway so that there is effectively an outer wall and then a second wall between you and any explosion. There are walls too in the national museum, it’s artworks taken away for safety, which offers one of the film’s most eerily melancholy moments.

But though these artists and their nation may have been forced to stand in a corridor of uncertainty, their voices continue to echo strongly out.