The beauty of art and nature and the brutality of war coexist in the Sundance 2024 Grand Jury Prize documentary “Porcelain War,” which Circuit Arts will screen on Friday, July 19.
While the world in Ukraine crumbles around them as the Russians invade their homeland, three artists stay behind. Slava Leontyev shapes bodies of small porcelain beasties by night, and trains civilians in warfare by day. His partner Anya Stasenko paints the creatures with minute fantasies inspired by nature and flights of invention, trying to keep a semblance of calm until Leontyev returns home from fighting. Their good friend Andrey Stefanov puts aside his canvases and arms himself with a camera, filming their extraordinary lives in a war-torn country.
“Porcelain War” brims with dichotomies. It opens with Stefanov’s gorgeous, tranquil footage of Leontyev and Stasenko and their most appealing dog, Frodo, in the countryside near their bombed-out town of Kharkiv, some 25 miles from the Russian border. The couple’s porcelain beings peer out at us occasionally, nestled in the grass and the like. All is warm sunlight and color. Hauntingly beautiful Ukrainian folk songs fill the air.
After some three minutes, in monochromatic footage, Stasenko and Leontyev walk through the crumbling, blown-out city as sirens blare, bombs burst, buildings explode, and planes fly low to their target.
We get to know the soldiers in Leontyev’s fighting unit, who include a dairy farmer, furniture sales manager, home contractor, graphic designer, weapons designer, and the female leader of the group, an IT business analyst.
Leontyev explains that Putin, being old, has nothing to lose: “He won’t stop. It’s only going to get worse.” He shares, too, that during this genocidal battle, the aggressors, at the first opportunity, try to destroy people who contribute to culture — writers, artists, and musicians: “When they erase people, they erase the Ukraine … Evil exists. Resistance to evil must undeniably … persist, must be uncompromising.”
The directors, Brendan Bellomo and Leontyev, interweave all too real and bleak war scenes with the warmth of the trio’s sustaining friendship and shared artistic mission. Leontyev says, “The stories we tell through art are our resistance. This is how we avoid erasure. We don’t only fight back with weapons; we use art to fight back.”
There are meditative scenes of Stasenko decorating the porcelain dragonlets, snails, and owls with designs inspired by the seasons, the lifecycle of the butterfly, and the changing colors of the leaves. “For me, [making art] is a form of speech. It’s my language … The figurines I make never vanish from my mind. Each picture, each image I’ve created, is stored in my memory,” she explains. “During the most revolting moments of this war, it’s critically important to just smile once in a while. That’s what I’m making art for, in our time, in our country.”
Stasenko’s paintings sometimes become magical, metaphorical animations of the cost of conflict. Leontyev also speaks of the metaphor of their medium: “We choose to work in porcelain. Porcelain is fragile, yet everlasting. It can withstand extreme heat, and even after thousands of years of burial, it can be restored … Ukraine is like porcelain, easy to break, but impossible to destroy.”
Stefanov is mainly behind the lens. But early on, he says, “Our goal was to tell our story and … simply to survive in this situation.” For him, that entails a harrowing tale when sending his wife and two daughters out of the country, which leaves him happy for their safety but with an aching heart.
Shot with compassion and candor, we care deeply about the trio and their adorable canine companion, which makes Leontyev’s words all the more powerful: “Nobody knows what awaits Ukraine. It’s a story we are creating now by the actions we take … None of us will ever be the same as we were before.”
Alternatingly contemplative and nerve-wracking, “Porcelain War” strikes us with the very human price of violent conflict.
“Porcelain War” screens at the Grange Hall in West Tisbury on Friday, July 19, at 5:30 and 8 pm, followed by a discussion with director Brendan Bellomo. Dinner between the screenings will be provided by Good Pierogi, from 5 to 8 pm. For pay-what-you-can tickets, visit circuitarts.org/porcelainwar.