Atlantis

Atlantis

“Atlantis” is easily one of the most depressing movies in years. In its 106 minutes, it covers PTSD, climate change, suicide, the dark side of capitalism and lingering war trauma with no sugar coating. It is also a very good movie with some truly stunning images. My task now is to write a review that could possibly persuade you to see it anyhow.

The film takes place in Ukraine in 2025, five years after government forces defeated pro-Russian separatists (as explained by title cards). Defeated is maybe not the right word because what’s left is a blasted out wasteland of rubble and polluted water where people still suffer from combat related illness. Among them are Sergiy (Andriy Rymaruk) and Ivan (Vasyl Antoniak), former soldiers who can’t ignore they have PTSD like it’s not obvious and how little their victory has achieved.

Both men work at an American owned steel mill about to close; both try to cope by regressing into their military mindset we see them start shooting targets, which escalates until they almost kill each other. Barely holding on himself, Sergiy is actually stronger than Ivan who lets himself get swallowed by darkness in an especially shocking way.

When the mill closes for good, Sergiy doesn’t know what to do with himself but eventually gets hired as a truck driver transporting fresh water to areas where there isn’t any anymore. On one run he’s diverted around a crew defusing land mines near the main road and waved down by Katya (Liudmyla Bileka), whose truck has broken down on a remote stretch.

It turns out she and another volunteer have taken it upon themselves to find and exhume anonymously buried bodies of dead soldiers in hopes of identifying them so they can be given proper funerals. This is grisly stuff indeed but when Sergiy offers to help Katya with her work between water runs, it represents his first steps toward reclaiming the humanity he thought was gone forever.

“Atlantis” isn’t a plot-heavy movie. Writer-director Valentyn Vasyanovych is far more interested in putting us in Sergiy’s numb headspace. He does this mostly through an affectless approach, shooting every scene in single unbroken takes that range from landscapes filled with bombed out buildings to rooms filled with rotting bodies (the camera moves twice: once when Sergiy accidentally kicks it and another time when he himself collapses).

It’s jarring at first but turns out to be exactly right for material that could have been completely unwatchable if presented more traditionally. The cinematography may bring to mind everyone from Werner Herzog to Chantal Akerman to Jim Jarmusch, but Vasyanovych has a vision all his own. No wonder this won the top prize in the Venice Film Festival’s Horizons sidebar.

It’s interesting that even though the film deals with extremely dark themes, it never becomes too much to bear. For instance, a movie with an extended unbroken shot of two doctors methodically stripping and examining a freshly unearthed body might seem like it would be among other things too much.

But Vasyanovych handles this scene and others like it with a certain delicacy; he doesn’t look away from the horrors, but he also refuses to wallow in them. Still, there are enough quiet moments of unexpected humor, such as a “1984”-inspired sequence in which steel mill owners announce its closure to workers and a beautifully developed sight gag involving Sergiy turning his truck into a giant hot tub for a moment’s relaxation amid the rubble.

There’s even an intimate climactic moment that’s all the more surprising for what precedes and follows it; in less gentle hands this scene might’ve come off as outright grotesque, yet Vasyanovych manages to find just the right touch that allows its humanity to shine through in ways both moving and believable.

I know most people want movies that help them forget about everything going on in the world right now rather than remind them of it. That being said, I’m sure at least some of you are willing to embrace darker material when presented with an undeniably unique and compelling cinematic approach from someone who has something interesting to say about our planet’s current state and where we may be headed. Those are the folks likely to take “Atlantis” into their hearts where it will stay long after it has ended.

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