“Klondike” takes place nine years ago and had its premiere one month before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, but its relevance hasn’t dimmed. It is set in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine in July 2014, when an antiaircraft missile downed Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, killing the 298 people on board. Russian-backed separatists were widely presumed to be responsible. Last year, a Dutch court handed down three convictions in the case.
That crash occurs about 20 minutes into “Klondike,” and it’s actually the second major act of violence in the film. In the opening shot, Tolik (Serhii Shadrin) tries to convince his pregnant wife, Irka (Oksana Cherkashyna), that she needs to get away to “where there is no war.” The moment he says that, a blast rocks their home, destroying a side of the house. The dwelling will remain open to the elements while Irka and Tolik continue to live there, despite the hostilities outside.
Irka is staunchly anti-separatist and refuses to acquiesce or leave. Tolik, while not expressly pro-separatist, favors the path of least resistance; he even slaughters a cow Irka likes to feed the men controlling the area. The director, Maryna Er Gorbach, portrays the nearby plane crash obliquely: The wreckage is seen piecemeal — on the news, as a distant smoke plume, as detached wings and, most horrifyingly, as a corpse still in a plane seat that lands on the couple’s property.
“Klondike” underlines the cognitive dissonance of wishing that context away. The director favors absurdist tableaus (Irka watches soccer on TV while the gaping hole in the house looms in the background), placid camera moves counterpointed by brutality and shots held so long that it almost seems as if the filmmaker is the one being cruel. It’s a grimly effective strategy for a harsh but powerful movie.
Klondike
Not rated. In Ukrainian, Russian, Chechen and Dutch, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. In theaters.
