Seattle International Film Festival 2025: Film #6
More a Sascha the Bailiff than a Kharkiv Story, presumably this was deliberately shot in the same, inky black tones of a Kurosawa movie. It might have benefited from examining how consuming the pop culture of another country might not be uncomplicated entertainment, even if much of that art was made under occupation itself.
Synopsis: Viktor, who was born deaf, worships the figure of the samurai warrior. When bombs start falling on his countryside home in Kharkiv, his quasi-romantic obsession with war is put to the test.