‘Klondike’ Review: Harrowing Drama Braids Marital and Political Warfare on the Russian-Ukrainian Border
variety.comGuy Lodge Film CriticPersonal and political turmoil face a serene camera in “Klondike,” a vision of the ongoing war in Donbass war that brooks no compromise in depicting the severe impact of the conflict on the region’s civilians — in particular, the innocent women to whom the film is dedicated.
Ukrainian writer-director Maryna Er Gorbach largely assumes the viewpoint of a heavily pregnant farmstead owner as her life and home quite literally fall apart on July 17, 2014, the day a Malaysia Airlines passenger flight was shot down over Donbass, killing nearly 300 people.
Irka (Oxana Cherkashyna) is determined to stand her ground even as her fellow villagers flee oncoming armed forces. In Er Gorbach’s potent film, shot in unbroken, unblinking takes that observe obscene violence and destruction with cold candor, Irka’s resistance to warfare is at once fierce and futile.
Winning the directing award in Sundance’s World Dramatic competition — ahead of a European premiere in Berlin’s Panorama strand — ought to boost “Klondike’s” profile with more adventurous arthouse distributors.
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