When I saw this documentary, I was also reading Erik Larson’s ”The Splendid and the Vile”, his engrossing account of the London Blitz. Depicting a city and nation frequently terrorized by a totalitarian regime’s bomb raids, and a wartime leader desperately trying to convince the United States of the need for more aid and more weapons, it was easy to see the similarities between Ukraine’s situation and that of Britain’s in the early days of World War II.
Then as now, it was hard to make Congress understand the urgent need to do whatever it takes to counter the threats posed by a major, and very aggressive, dictatorship. This film is undeniable documentation of Vladimir Putin’s crimes against humanity.
Indiscriminate Russian bombing
The siege of Mariupol, a port city in southeastern Ukraine, began shortly after Putin’s decision to attack the country. Beginning in February 2022, the siege lasted for three months and was marked by indiscriminate Russian bombing, resulting in many thousands of civilians killed, and the complete destruction of most of the city. This documentary depicts a few weeks when the city was still standing but starting to feel the effect of the war.
Educating American audiences
Mstyslav Chernov, the director behind 20 Days in Mariupol, is our guide through this odyssey of hell, working closely with AP and PBS’s Frontline to gather material; clips from that program shows us how American audiences were educated about the fate of Mariupol, but in this film we see the whole picture, the brutal tragedy behind what can be shown on PBS. Chernov is an experienced war correspondent, having worked in Syria and Iraq and also covered the 2014 war in Donbas; he knows how to move in these areas and how to cover events with light equipment. His dry, quiet, mournful and calm voice has an arresting quality, an effective contrast against the terror his camera is recording. Chernov is also a journalist who has an eye for what’s most effective in different situations; this film has both stills and video, with a focus on the civilians who suffer the most from Russia’s bombardment.
This is a tough movie to watch
As the enemy approaches, there is a lot of tension and the film covers what it’s like to live in a modern city that’s falling apart, complete with unpredictable bomb raids, looting and hospitals under increasing strain with a never-ending flow of maimed and dying civilians. This is a tough movie to watch; I spent days afterward being unable to see kids on the subway in my safe town without thinking about the dead children in this documentary. It’s a sight neither we nor the doctors in Mariupol can, or should, get used to.
The civilians we meet in the streets are understandably shocked, grief-stricken and mad as hell about what Putin is doing to them.
Russian lies in the news and on social media are effectively contrasted with what our own eyes can see. 20 Days in Mariupol is an experience that makes you queasy and furious; there’s also a great sadness in knowing that what remains of the city today is under Russian authority. The film serves as a powerful reminder of what a modern fascist threat looks like.
20 Days in Mariupol 2023-Ukraine. 94 min. Color. Written and directed by Mstyslav Chernov.
Trivia: Original title: 20 dniv u Mariupoli.
Oscar: Best Documentary Feature. BAFTA: Best Documentary.
Last word: “I was primarily gathering news footage and making news dispatches for the Associated Press that later were distributed across the world. But until the Mariupol maternity hospital bombing, I did not realize that the story of Mariupol is so significant, so symbolic and big that it needs to be told in a bigger form. It’s only when we left the city, when we broke out of the siege, when I miraculously could carry this 30 hours of footage that I filmed – and at that point, only 40 minutes were published – [that] I realized that what I was looking at is actually a film.” (Chernov, The Hollywood Reporter)
