Reflection (2021 film)

The film centers on Serhiy, a Ukrainian military surgeon who is captured by the Russian military forces in 2014 during one of the battles at the Russo-Ukrainian War in Eastern Ukraine. During his time as the prisoner of war, Serhiy witnesses terrifying scenes of torture, rape and various other examples of dehumanizing behaviour towards POWs. Soon after, as a part of a prison swap between Russia and Ukraine, Serhiy gets released from captivity and returns to his pre-war normal day-to-day life only to discover that the horrors that he witnessed as a prisoner are still haunting him. To help fight his post-war PTSD, Serhiy decides to try and fix his relationships with his ex-wife and his estranged 12-year-old daughter Polina, who is suffering from a recent loss of a loved one in the war. As Serhiy spends more time with Polina and tries to help her move on from her loss, he gradually starts to confront his own post-traumatic fears and anxieties.[6][7][4]

• Roman Lutskyi as Serhiy
• Nika Myslyts'ka as Polina
• Nadiya Levchenko as Olha
• Andriy Rymaruk as Andriy
• Oleksandr Danyliuk as Surgeon
• Andrii Senchuk as Psychologist
• Ihor Shulha as Chief of the Prison
• Dmytro Sova as tortured Ukrainian prisoner
• Stanislav Aseyev as Russian FSB officer

Film project Reflection won during the 11th pitching of Ukrainian State Film Agency; ₴25 million of state funding was awarded, which represents 80% of the total budget of ₴31.3 million (€1 million).[8][9][10]

Reflection was produced by Valentyn Vasyanovych and Iya Myslyts'ka (Harmata Films/Arsenal Films) as well as Volodymyr Yatsenko and Anna Sobolevska (Limelite/ForeFilms). Pre-production prepeartions for the movie took place in May 2020.[11] Filming began in early summer of 2020 and ended in January 2021. In July 2021 film producers announced that they are already finishing the post-production and starting editing the film.[12]

Unlike Vasyanovych's previous feature film, Atlantis (2019) where most of the actors were the actual veterans of Russo-Ukrainian War, in Reflection most of the actors involved were professional.[13][14][15] However, to ensure a realistic depiction of the Russo-Ukrainian War, Vasyanovych heavily relied on military consultants, who have gone through Russo-Ukrainian War; one of the better known of the film's consultants was Stanislav Aseyev, who himself spent more than two years as political prisoner in the Donetsk People's Republic's notorious Izolyatsia prison in 2017–2019.[16]

The film is shot in Vasyanovych's trademark series of static, single-frame shots; according to Variety's experts “Reflection” consists of 29 static shots.[17]

The film was released in September 2021 to generally favorable rievews from film critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 100% based on 5 reviews, with an average rating of 8/10.[32] On the review aggregator website Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of TBA out of 100, based on TBA reviews.[33] At film's world premiere at Venice the film received ten-minute standing ovation.[34][35]

Leslie Felperin, writing for The Hollywood Reporter, praised the film's cinematography and acting, singling out Roman Lutskyi's performance and saying that the "deeper, more nuanced story [...] about betrayal and redemption, mercy and survival [is] all played out with great restraint thanks to Lutskyi's subtle performance".[36] Jessica Kiang, writing for Variety, praised the film's story and cinematography, calling it "a stark yet soulful evocation of PTSD-in-progress" where "Ukrainian director Valentyn Vasyanovych asks, with brutal austerity, what happens to the soul of a man – and a nation – at war". Kiang emphasized the fact that it is the "tension between the startling and sometimes brutally visceral story each single scene contains and the coolly considered, contemplative manner of its containment — lit in perfectly centered shafts of painterly, Caravaggian light — that makes “Reflection” such a compelling statement on the horrors of armed conflict, specifically here [in] the early days of the still-ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War" and concluded by saying that "[Reflection] is oblique, challenging and, if you're up for it, one of the most intellectually provocative and rewarding films in this year's Venice Competition".[37] Jonathan Romney, writing for ScreenDaily, praised the film's cinematography, calling it "a singularly brutal film from the uncompromising and brilliant Valentyn Vasyanovych".[38] Anna Smith, writing for Deadline, praised Vasyanovych's new work calling it a "thought-provoking film" where "writer-director-cinematographer Vasyanovych presents events in a quiet, matter of fact way, both mimicking the cold detachment of the aggressors and underlining the fact that these [war] terrors do not require sensationalizing".[39] Nicholas Bell, writing for IONCINEMA, praised Vasyanovych's new work, saying "Vasyanovych has an ability [to] goad us into disturbing but necessary contemplation past the final credits of a grueling, beautifully shot film."[40]

After the premiere of the film in Venice in September 2021, the vast majority of Ukrainian film critics spoke in favor of the film. Alex Malyshenko from Bird In Flight praised the film, calling it “one of the main Ukrainian films of the next [2022] year”, but noted that the perception of the film may differ because, according to Malyshenko, watching “Reflection”, you are likely to think of cruelty war and personal choice, about death and life after it, about the Buddhist and Christian concept of the soul and even a little about ghosts “and” for some it will be a pleasant experience of immersion, and some will suffer from long scenes and complex cinematic language.[41]

• Reflection at IMDb
• Reflection at Rotten Tomatoes
• Reflection at Metacritic
• Reflection at DzygaMDB (in Ukrainian)
• Reflection at New Europe Film Sales