The 2024 Ukrainian documentary film “Porcelain War” directed by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev follows the story of three Ukrainian artists, Slava Leontyev, Anya Stasenko and Andrey Stefanov, who have remained in Kharkiv despite the Russian invasion.
The film is an ode to art and its power as a form of resistance against oppression. In a world where cinema is rapidly losing the art of subtlety, lines like “You have to create. That’s the only way you can overcome,” “Creating art is how we avoid erasure” and “We don’t only use weapons to fight back. We also use art to fight back” convey the film’s theme with not a whisper but a bullhorn. Although the line between overt and inspired is walked tightly, the narrators’ conviction is ultimately sincere enough to sell the point.
Co-director Slava Leontyev met his partner Anya Stasenko in art school and collaborated with her on porcelain work. Now, in a time of war, both continue to create porcelain figurines, as Leontyev sculpts delicate snails and dragonlets and Stasenko paints them with exquisite detailed illustrations. More than once in the film, these figurines come to life in animation on screen.
The couple’s friend and the film’s cinematographer, Andrey Stefanov, is an oil painter originally from Crimea. Stefanov emphasized how he feels war necessitates art.
“Before the war, I didn’t make films,” Stefanov said.
The Ukrainian spirit of cultural resilience is apparent in “Porcelain War,” as the three artists continue to create art in Kharkiv despite the bombs dropping on nearby neighborhoods. Though some moments in the film border on saccharine, such as when Stasenko passes a porcelain dragonlet she has painted in military camo around a unit of soldiers who seem impressed, if not a bit confused by what they aresupposed to do with it, the film stays mostly grounded in the reality of the war.
Leontyev serves in the Ukrainian special forces as a machine gun trainer, teaching enlisted civilians how to use weapons of war. He introduces the members of his platoon, whose previous job descriptions include dairy farmer, graphic designer, furniture sales manager and home contractor. Now, he says, they are all soldiers because the war gave them no choice.
A few of the movie’s scenes are shot by these soldiers on a GoPro-style camera from the ruined apartments and snowy streets of Bakhmut, where (to quote Leontyev), “Armageddon is happening.” The first person point of view shots show close-ups of some of the more gruesome war scenes, such as drone shots of exploding Russian tanks and enemy soldiers’ bodies scattered in the streets, that earned the film its R rating.
In this regard, the film does occasionally veer into Ukrainian military propaganda — an idea enforced by Stasenko’s idolised description of soldiers “holding the umbrella…over each of us who is still doing art in this country.”
Nevertheless, the film maintains vivid honesty about human experience during war. War’s omnipresence, for example, is potent.
In one softly lit domestic scene, Stasenko stands at the kitchen sink washing dishes. She talks to Leontyev, seated at the kitchen table behind her, about the day’s headlines of missile strikes on Odessa. In another scene, Stasenko is sitting in bed, her laptop propped up in front of her, as their dog Frodo lies by her side. The camera zooms in on Frodo, asleep, as Stasenko reads aloud the news of refugees being evacuated from underground subway stations in Kharkiv.
It is in these quiet moments that the camera reminds us how constantly war bleeds into everyday life. As viewers, we are left to wonder what else one can discuss but war when one’s people and country are being destroyed.
Late in the film, it is revealed that Stefanov’s daughters and wife have been staying with a friend in Lithuania since the war began. He drove five days to the Polish border to get them to safety, where they were taken by officials so quickly he didn’t get to say goodbye. He mourns the lost time with his daughters, and is conflicted between his relief that they are safe and his loneliness as he remains by himself in Kharkiv. The film features his daughters, Anya and Sonya, via a video call in which they talk about how much they miss their father. It’s a heart wrenching scene, and though Stefanov smiles and laughs, it is difficult to ignore how much pain the war causes these divided families.
No moment is safe from the war’s omnipresence. A tranquil walk through a golden, sunlit pasture and forest with Frodo abruptly shifts when Stasenko picks up a piece of moss to reveal a mine. Even the filming itself is physically aware of the war. Stefanov and Leontyev are unboxing shoes in a warehouse-like facility when the air siren goes off. We hear an explosion off-camera and the video trembles, and Stefanov mutters “Bloody hell, my camera is shaking.” Like the GoPro videos in Bakhmut, this physical irrefutability of the war reminds us how real and close the danger really is, and succeeds in diminishing the removed sensation of untouchability viewers are usually privy to.
From a cinematographic standpoint, the film is beautiful. The golden pastures and forests of Kharkiv are tranquil and lovely. Stefanov, despite his self-proclaimed inexperience, composes beautiful frames of porcelain perched on tree trunks, shards of glass reflecting grey skies from the ground and warm close-ups of art and its creation. The film also contains striking shots of the war: clips of a tank plowing through trees and tracings of angry geometric shapes into the farmland, which remind viewers of the brutality and the expanse of war’s destruction. Panoramic shots of ruined apartment buildings with tattered curtains billowing through emptied window frames are plentiful and moving.
Throughout the documentary, the theme is constant: through its beauty, creativity, and compelling storytelling, “Porcelain War” tells a story of human hope and the necessity of art to endure.
“Our goal is to make this film and tell our story,” Stefanov said. “And simply to survive this situation. Survive.”
