A clever balance between magical realism and formal fly-on-the-wall documentary, Ivan Ostrochovský and Pavol Pekarčík’s striking Photophobia is an examination of life within Ukraine’s Kharkiv metro, where men, women children live a strange underground existence as they escape the bombardment of the city.
The film provides a gently lyrical and illuminating portrait of life with neither day nor night, its story largely seen through the eyes of 12-year-old Nikita, who has spent the last two months underground with his family. He is struggling to find fun and solace in this strange, new and almost post-apocalyptic wartime reality.
Presented as a Special Event in the 20th Giornate degli Autori line-up at the Venice Film Festival – and awarded the Europa Cinemas Label for Best European Film in the section – Photophobia is a fiction-documentary hybrid, with that blend sitting rather perfectly within the surreal underground world that feels like a cross between a waiting room and a sociological experiment.
The film actually opens up on the ground as a team of men work at a hatch to the underground system, eventually running when they start to hear explosions. The story swiftly switches as the heavy doors open and, in a scene that could have been lifted from a sci-fi film set in some dystopian future, newcomers are asked to register at platform 1 before they are searched and quizzed as to where they have come from.
Nikta’s mother Yana takes him to a doctor where it is explained he lacks sun and fresh air, and he is prescribed vitamins. The doctor also suggests he should start a diary and take note of his activities every day alongside the hundreds of folk living in the station. But it is when he bonds with the sweet-natured Vika – a little girl around his age and sporting a touch-responsive bunny ears hat – that things get more adventurous. They run through tunnels, play with ticket machines and balance on train tracks – essentially becoming “children” again rather than subterranean refugees.
Despite the war raging above them, Nikita and Vika discover a kind of magic to their underground life. They chat with fellow residents as they play with cats and dogs, and they even listen to an old man who plays the guitar (Vitaly) and who offers advice on love. Not that everybody loves his playing – as one woman comments off-camera “aren’t we suffering enough?”
The film – running a tight and thoughtful 72 minutes – does a great job of showing matter-of-fact style how the people live this surreal underground life, sad and often tearful but also with an underlying resilience. For Ostrochovský and Pekarčík, though, there is a sense of hope that permeates the story, with the innocence of children at the heart of what is, in truth, a devastating backdrop.
Slovakia-Czech Republic-Ukraine, 2023, 71mins
Dirs: Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol Pekarčík
Production: Cinémotif Films, Punkchart Films, Arthouse Traffic
Producers: Ivan Ostrochovský, Katarína Tomková, Albert Malinovský, Tomáš Michálek, Kristýna Michálek Květová, Dennis Ivanov
Screenplay: Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol Pekarčík, Marek Leščák
Cinematography: Ivan ostrochovský, Pavol Pekarčík
Editors: Ivan Ostrochovský, Pavol Pekarčík, Martin Piga
Music: Roman Kurhan, Michal Novinski
With Nikita Tyshchenko, Viktoriia Mats, Yana Yevdokymova, Yevhenii Borshch, Anna Tyshchenko, Vitaly Pavlovitch
