For contemporary Ukrainian filmmakers, every film is now intertwined with the spectre of Russian aggression. Nightly bombs, the sound of tanks, the ever-present threat of death. Yet life has to go on. It must. And just as people adapt to the new normal, films that may have been about one thing now have an added existential potency.
International Competition entry Flowers of Ukraine (Adelina Borets, 2024), starts in 2021 and appears to be initially pitched as a quirky character study of a woman standing up to rampant capitalist development in a rapidly shifting Kyiv. But as Russia expanded their territorial demands on Ukraine and launched a full-scale invasion in 2022, our protagonist becomes a metaphor for an unbending people under fascist invasion. With poetic flair, subtlety and sympathy, Borets’ debut feature shows that simply living with joy is its own form of resistance.
It starts like a live-action version of Up (Pete Docter, 2009). Natalia is in her early 70s and lives in a chaotic makeshift development situated between endless high-rise blocks that looks more like an out-of-control allotment than a small village, with corrugated roofs, free-roaming goats and a mixture of wild and curated flowers. People constantly complain about the goats, which scurry onto people’s cars and leave mess wherever they go. At her birthday party, she flirts and makes fun of her two ex-husbands before later arguing with property developers who want to turn her property into a kindergarten. Yet, as 2022 rolls around, signified by a deep blanket of snow, the question turns from whether her property will survive to whether Natalia herself will make it through the war.
Earlier, when Natalia stands in front of a bulldozer, refusing to let them come in, it may have been a symbol of her anarchist defiance. Post 2022, it echoes footage of Ukrainian citizens standing in front of tanks in the East. Claiming herself to be a young grandmother, she even signs up with the territorial defence, utilising her skills running her home to take care of the city at large, her individuality giving way to a broader sense of collective responsibility.
With an understated style, heavy on simple montage and a propulsive minimalist score, Borets stays close to our protagonist, who is in almost every scene. Running under 70 minutes and ending while the war is ongoing — Natalia and her property’s fate still unclear — the final result is an effective snapshot of resilience that rings with haunting urgency.
Redmond is the editor-in-chief of Journey Into Cinema.