Ukrainian film-maker Maksym Nakonechnyi finished war drama Butterfly Vision last February, just days before the Russian invasion. His film tells a fictional story about a shellshocked female Ukrainian soldier held prisoner for two months by Russian-backed separatists in Donbas during the conflict that began in 2014. It’s a tough, unsparing movie, and possibly not the Ukrainian film that anyone wants to watch right now as the country fights for survival. Nakonechnyi’s reflective script, co-written with Iryna Tsilyk, doesn’t have Russia in its crosshairs; instead there are some inconveniently downbeat insights into the divided attitudes the soldier faces when she returns home.
The soldier’s name is Lilya (Rita Burkovska), nicknamed “Butterfly”, an aerial reconnaissance expert who is released in a prisoner swap. We watch her reunion with her family in the format of a news bulletin, with the emojis and comments of online viewers flashing across the screen. One is an OMG about Lilya’s bedraggled appearance: “What happened to her gorgeous hair?” Others are more sympathetic: “It’s hard to imagine what she’s been through.”
