Direction: Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk
Country: Ukraine
Pamfir, the feature debut by Ukrainian writer-director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk, flirts with the aggressiveness of Guy Ritchie’s early films and the bleakness of Sergei Loznitsa’s tales of hopelessness. The film, rudimentary but not excessively violent, follows Leonid a.k.a. Pamfir (Oleksandr Yatsentyuk), a former smuggler who returns to his tiny rural village in West Ukraine - located on the border with Romania - after several months working in Poland. Although happy to stay with his family - wife Olena (Solomiya Kyrylova) and son Nazar (Stanislav Potiak) - the monolithic Leonid falls into the same traps of the past to mend his son’s imprudent actions.
Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk paints a dark and desperate portrait of a crumbling Ukraine marked by crime lords, the loss of values, traditional folklore (Malanka holiday), and the generalized corruption of public authorities. With a heavy atmosphere, Greek stoicism, and unmerited misfortune, this is an aesthetically strong picture lit by the magnificent work of director of photography, Nikita Kuzmenko.
Pamfir finds limited options to deal with unexpected predicaments in a contemporary tragedy that is pretty decent but harsh. In his debut, and due to the script’s nature, Yatsentyuk conveys more action than emotion. His professionalism is never in question though.
