Atlantis

The timely, visually arresting quasi-sci-fi drama Atlantis takes place in Eastern Ukraine about five years in the future. After “winning” a devastating war with Russia, most of the country has become an inhospitable desert where gigantic Soviet-style vehicles transport water, other heavy equipment, and huge pieces of a border wall around vast deserted landscapes. At the center of the movie is Sergiy (Andriy Rymaryk), a former soldier with PTSD who works as a smelter but loses his job after the death of a co-worker. Adrift in a new job driving a water truck, Sergiy struggles to adapt to his new life until he meets Katya (Liudmyla Bileka), a humanitarian activist dedicated to exhuming and identifying the war dead.

It’s unfortunate this film was released in the year of COVID-19, where viewers outside of 2019 film festivals most likely all saw it on a small screen. Much of the film is told without dialogue through long, wide, static shots that captivate and hypnotize the viewer as we watch huge machinery or tiny individuals moving within the frame for long stretches of time. The cast, including Rymaryk and Bileka, is made up entirely of veterans, volunteers, and soldiers with no prior acting experience. Watching the film triggers profound thoughts about life and death, victory and defeat, and the nature of humanity. It is a bleak picture but hardly one bereft of hope.