"The Ukrainian CATCH-22"
Sergei Loznitsa's award-winning ('Un Certain Regard' at Cannes) pitch black satirical comedy gets a UK Blu-ray release from Eureka.
In Eastern Ukraine, the Donbass region has been broken up into tiny factions by separatist gangs who are all at war with each other. At the same time many of these possess little organisational capability and are expending as much effort on infighting as in battling their opponents.
As we travel through the Donbass we are witness to a number of episodes that illustrate the horrors, the confusion, the frustration, the swindling and cheating, and above all the sheer ludicrousness of war.
Despite being pitched as comedy, DONBASS is grim. Every location looks like a bomb site, filled with burning vehicles and with the chill weather adding a further biting edge to the proceedings.
I haven't seen any of director Sergei Loznitsa's other movies, but DONBLASS very much has touches of Franz Kafka, George Orwell and Joseph Heller, although this is a much bleaker film than Mike Nichols' version of CATCH-22.
Eureka's Blu-ray comes with a couple of sound options (5.1 DTS-HD MA and LPCM 2.0 and you can play it without English subtitles if you want. An accompanying booklet features new writing on the film by Jason Wood
Sergei Loznitsa's DONBASS is out from Eureka now
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