Film Shapes

This harrowing documentary follows a group of war correspondents in the besieged city of Mariupol in south-east Ukraine. It starts as the Russian invasion gets underway and creeps towards devastation as the frontline gets ever closer. It's an extremely tough watch. The writer/director, Mstyslav Chernov, doesn't shy away from showing us children dead from shelling, parents absolutely bereft from grief, and the complete loss of hope that's riddled through the doctors and nurses. It almost feels redundant to talk about technique here but this film holds a straightforward doco structure that opens with a hint of the 'big moment', then a diary style unfolds (the 20 days), before returning to the beginning to show us how it all panned out. That focal point is an impending attack on a hospital that the crew are holed up in, followed by a frantic dash to find a Red Cross convoy rumoured to be leaving the city. Some of the most striking detail in the film is that if you'...