Mykyta Gibalenko’s feature debut, Camouflage, begins promisingly enough, in 2021, over a year before Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Vitaly (Arthur Aliiev) is a 22-year-old student who dreams of leaving his country and beginning a new life in Munich, Germany. He lives with his mother, Eugenia (Yelyzaveta Tsilyk) and his sister, Tetyana (Anna Yaremchuk-Bobalo), who has a girlfriend, Alina, (her mother doesn’t know about) who is in the military. Mom does not believe that Russia would ever attack Ukraine.
“One’s a stutterer and the other’s a lesbian,” Tetyana jokes with Vitaly about her mother’s certain disappointment once she learns of her same-sex relationship.
Much to his family’s dismay Vitaly does leave and slowly begins to find himself in the world of avant-garde theater where he becomes a performer with an experimental student troupe. He makes new friends and even moves in with the sweet Fiona (a terrific Klara Lange). There’s a hint that they’re lovers but there’s also a slight hint that Vitaly’s sexual orientation may be more fluid.
Everything changes on February 22, 2022, when Russia launches its attack on Ukraine. Eugenia and Tetyana are forced to leave their beloved country and move in with Vitaly and Fiona, which does not go very smoothly since neither wants to be there and are forced to assimilate while Vitaly is quite happy learning the German language and customs.
A frustrated Tetyana is concerned about Alina, who she’s lost contact with, while Eugenia, a teacher, is holding Zoom classes with her students.
The relationships get more complicated when bad news reaches the family causing Tetyana to lash out at her brother.
The film is an evocative, intriguing and sometimes harrowing look at how war can tear people to shreds, forcing them to witness the worst horrors and often bulldozing them from their beloved land.
Gibalenko also exposes the cruelty that can emerge. I was angered by the way Tetyana bullies and belittles Vitaly in the final quarter, without him retaliating at all—especially after all he did for her and his mother. And it made it very difficult for me to care about her or mom. I get loyalty to country and family, but there’s also respect for the individual which should always take precedence. Always. And maybe exploring that conflict was exactly what the filmmaker wanted us to do, but I wanted to feel more empathy for Tetyana and Eugenia, instead of wishing they’d just go back to Ukraine—war or no war.
The impressive newcomer Aliiev, who looks like a Ukrainian Paul Mescal, grounds the film with an endearing, sincere, understated performance. His Vitaly is searching for his own identity and as opposed to his mother and sister, is not tied to a country or a way of thinking. He’s looking for his own place in the world. And may have found it.
Camouflage is part of Venice Days (Giornate degli Autori).
In Ukrainian, Russian and German, with English subtitles.
