Hey, just because you’re at war doesn’t mean you can’t be an artist, right? In fact, being at war makes artistic expression all the more important, does it not? Those are the thoughts of the heroes of today’s documentary, Porcelain War … which is a little bit about porcelain, and a great deal about war.
Slava Leontyev and Anya Stasenko are artists. They make cute porcelain animals. Slava is the architect. He creates molds, pours the material, fires up the kiln, and glues on the extremities. Look, here’s an owl! Anya is the painter. She draws stories onto each creature, often about her own life and her personal trials and triumphs. She can get a ton of detail into each fist-sized animal. Both of these folks are talented artists, and they definitely work well together.
The film notes in the opening credits that the subjects themselves shot most of the film (I imagine everything except the stock footage). For the first five minutes, Porcelain War imagines these are normal artists living in a normal place. And then we see the background: a neighborhood destroyed by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These animals are signs of defiance and rebellion. Slava is not only part of the resistance; he leads a drone team whose mission is to scout Russian troop position to minimize Ukrainian losses.
Every once in a while, a film comes along that educates you in a way you haven’t experienced. Porcelain War is like that. The universe of Ukraine and the Russian War going on there is so foreign and far away. We naturally support Ukraine and Ukrainians because Putin is a monster and has acted like a monster, but I know so little of what actually has occurred. Slava and Anya have normal lives on the surface. They eat, they breathe. They make art. They also go for nature walks in minefields. And sometimes, they don camo and
drop bombs from drones on Russian installations. Russia stole their lives in Crimea and this is their payback. The art? “This is how we avoid erasure.”
One peculiarity of the Ukrainian resistance is how overmatched our artists ought to be. I had never considered this point. Russia invades with professional soldiers. Those who resist are anything but; they all had to learn war skills. There is a lot of training footage in this film. And while Porcelain War shies away from most of the horror or war (plenty of building carnage, almost zero human carnage), the film hasn’t shied away from showing frontline action in Bakhmut, where battle lines were drawn in 2022.
Somebody is gonna die, right? That was my thought throughout the film. And, indeed, a hard-hitting documentary wouldn’t shy away from personal tragedy. Is Porcelain War that hard hitting? Did it go from cute little fox statues to intense displays of disembowelment? No. It did not. But it did point out that in one corner of the globe, you can see a quiet couple indulging their artistic passions peacefully while, quite literally, ten minutes away, someone they know is facing down a Russian tank. Points for style if not for content.
There once was a couple from Ukraine
Whose lives one has to explain
The passion they bring
Is an uber-kitsch thing
But their job is warding off Putin’s reign
Rated R, 87 Minutes
Director: Brendan Bellomo, Slava Leontyev
Writer: Aniela Sidorska, Brendan Bellomo, Paula DuPré Pesmen
Genre: What to express when you’re expecting … bombs
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Ukrainians
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Russians
