"Earth is blue like an orange" is a joint Ukrainian-Lithuanian project, captures the story of a single mother Anna and her four children who share a lifelong love affair with the movies. Every member of the family has a passion for cinema, driving them to shoot, edit and screen a film inspired by their own life set against the backdrop of war in Donbass town (Ukraine) between 2014-2015. This is one of the best ode to cinema, a love letter to the medium which is superbly performed by everybody, although the cast is mostly non-actors. It is a sort of intellectual fearlessness that deepens the story with metastory. The title of the film references the poem of French surrealist Paul Éluard 'La Terre est bleue comme une orange', that appeared in his collection of poems 'L'Amour la poésie' published in 1929.
While in the background, as always in the Iryna Tsilyk's cinema, there is
the recurring theme of War and it's aftermath but in this documentary, we see her love for the medium and an emotional bonding emerges. It is so tough to live through this pandemic, it is not easy when you don't have anyone around. There's been so much uncertainty, so much fear, loss, threat of bio warfare, nuclear war in the air, geo-political tensions. It is dreadful speculating for what will come later, maybe another (illegal) invasion by these rich power blocks and hegemonic militaries, possible world war, communal riots, more of these unethical experimentation manipulated in a lab or place of worship or anywhere. But the sci-fi kid inside me salivates at the idea of zombie outbreak or alien invasion. Lol, this has got to be a joke anyway Life has been on tetherhooks and work of art like The Earth Is Blue as an Orange (2020) is necessary for sanity. I recommend this documentary that should not only be of interest to arthouse fans but anyone who loves cinema to check it out altleast once.
