Direction: Roman Bondarchuk
Country: Ukraine
The first fiction feature from Ukrainian Roman Bondarchuk started as a documentary. Volcano got its roots from the real life of the director’s girlfriend’s uncle, a former head of a fish farm who lost everything and now lives tormented by the future.
In this surreal comedy drama, Bondarchuk cooperated with Alla Tyutyunnik and co-producer Dar’ya Averchenko in the script, mounting a tale where fiction and reality touch with sufficiently eventful episodes and oddities to keep us absorbed.
While working with an OSCE mission in a forgotten steppe region next to the Crimean border in South Ukraine, Lukas (Serhiy Stepansky) gets lost, also losing track of his colleagues. He’s picked up by a local young woman, Marushka (Khrystyna Deylyk), who takes him to her father, Vova (Viktor Zhdanov), a jobless man with some strange ideas for business.
The anarchy of the place is alarming, and Lukas ends up being robbed, arrested, beaten up, abandoned in a hole to die, and involved in spectacular fights with a gang of a neighbor village. He also sees a mirage of dead people in the sun, and experiences friendship and true love. Is he crazy enough to stay?
Never overheated, the film plays like a nightmarish fairy tale that is by turns austere and affecting. While the absurd humor generates crushing awkwardness, the convincing environments promulgate a sad authenticity. And this mix functions correctly, regardless the so-so finale.
