Vietnam saw the advent of the visible war, documented by TV cameras; but the Russia-Ukraine war perhaps represents the moment we also get a fully audible one. With two relatively affluent belligerents involved, mobile phone coverage is ubiquitous on both the civilian and soldier sides. Juxtaposing intercepted calls back home from frontline Russian troops with shots of the devastation they have wreaked in Ukraine, this film is a bleak and searing wiretap into Putin’s warping effect on his people and the psychology of power.
“A Russian is not a Russian if they don’t steal something,” jokes one woman when she hears her brave boy has looted some makeup for her. Set against the shots of ransacked living rooms, wrecked petrol stations and dimly lit bomb shelters, such casual banter hammers home a chilling normalisation of imperialism and aggression – which comes with varying justifications. There is the standard dehumanisation: that the “khokhols” (a derogatory Russian term for Ukrainians) deserve it. Many parrot Putin’s line that the special military operation is fighting fascists. Or, in some troops’ amazement at Ukrainian ice-cream and abundant livestock, we glimpse an economic envy that lets such lies slip down more easily.
