‘Mariupolis 2’ Review: Mantas Kvedaravičius’s Last Testament Is a Raw War Document of Civilians in Ukraine
variety.comOwen Gleiberman Chief Film Critic“Mariupolis 2” is a document of the war in Ukraine that’s as raw and real as they come. It was made by the Lithuanian filmmaker and anthropologist Mantas Kvedaravičius, who was killed, on April 2, during the siege of Mariupol (he was taken captive and shot by Russian soldiers).
He had been making his film there, documenting the lives of Ukranian civilians who had taken refuge in a church. The movie, conceived as a follow-up to the 2016 documentary “Mariupolis,” was completed by Kvedaravičius’s partner, Hanna Bilbrova (who takes a co-director credit), and it was shown for the first time as a Special Screening in Cannes.For the entire film, we’re inside, or on the grounds of, or maybe across the street from the Christian Baptist Evangelical Church, a tall building, stately in a slightly ungainly way, made of tan brick lined along the sides with red brick columns.
The architecture is somewhere between modernist (there are two circular windows) and medieval, the building framed in front by a pair of giant old spruce trees.
In the basement, where makeshift beds have been set up, about two dozen civilians linger, praying and eating meals together, and waiting for…they don’t know what.
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