Stara Zburivka (Old Zburivka) is a small town, 2500 residents, 25 km southwest of Kherson. Its companion Nova Zburivka (New Zburivka) is larger, 7500 residents, and just next on the map. Officially, both towns have more than 80% Ukrainian speakers (the rest mostly speaking Russian) but this is probably exaggerated and reflects the Ukrainian Government low tolerance for Russian speakers. There is no police station in town thus law and order are maintained by Sheriffs Viktor and Volodya, appointed by the Mayor. They patrol their domain in a beat up, rickety Lada of Soviet vintage painted in Ukrainian yellow and sporting a tiny flag jutting out of a rear window. The town is not cheerful; some houses are in disrepair, backyards overgrown, street paving neglected and mud and slush everywhere (it's winter). The only remarkable building is a spacious, well kept meeting hall constructed in Soviet times.
The film is made of unconnected sketches where Viktor and Volodya, the epitome of cool, deal with situations that range from the trivial to the criminal (drunkenness, theft, invasion of property, domestic violence, finding of a corpse in a stable). The action begins before the Maidan coup; there are portraits of Viktor Yanukovych on the walls. Sometime after the coup old Soviet radios and black-and-white grainy television screens bring the news that President Poroshenko has initiated military action against the Donbass separatist rebels. The townspeople begins to receive draft notices. The rebels attempt to form a new town government and one senses the slow and painful realization that neighbors living by generations at worst in uneasy tolerance must now choose sides in a senseless, fratricidal war which will probably not make their lives better no matter the outcome.
This movie should be called a semidocumentary, since some of the sketches seem staged to some extent (but then that's true of many other documentaries). It shows you reality without preaching or taking sides.
