Klondike captures something that's often missing in films about war, and that is the cruel, unforgiving randomness of it.
In many war movies, there will be build-up to the carnage; lingering shots of dead bodies that add gravity to them. When we open on an unassuming couple in their homestead, there's nothing to prepare us for the blast that sets the film in motion. (As for the deaths, the most striking thing about them is usually how LITTLE gravity they have; how profoundly indifferent the world seems toward them.)
What follows is a movie that's both brutal enough to rival Klimov's Come and See (mainly towards the end) and well-shot and well-staged enough to rival Tarkovsky -- with its misty greens and long, solemn takes of rural, once-Soviet environments. The way the camera slowly but surely creeps forward during some of these lengthy takes (in a way where we initially don't realize there's any movement) also reminded me of 2014's Norte: The End of History.
It is a film that I've anticipated since its Sundance premiere all the way back in January 2022; only now does it get a wide release. Some people assume that it was based on recent events, namely the 2022 invasion of Ukraine that alerted more people to the Russo-Ukranian War than ever, not knowing that the film predates the escalation and that this conflict dates all the way back to 2014 (the events of the film revolve around the attack against Malaysia Airlines flight 17). So, no, this is not the "movie version" of all that stuff you've seen on TikTok.
For the most part, little seems to happen in the movie, yet there is always something to spot in the backgrounds, even in the farthest distance, be it passing war vehicles or groups of Ukrainian civilians wandering mournfully -- the ongoing bedlam is always, on some level, felt. Regardless, the actors we follow are superb, and the music by Zviad Mgebrishvili makes for an effective dirge.
In a perfect world, the "Best International Feature" slot for All Quiet On the Western Front, as good as that movie was, would have instead gone to Klondike.
