OSCARS 2025: Porcelain War (2024)

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science must simply love to hate Vladimir Putin. I mean, I agree that Putin is, ya know, a terrible human being. However, I first noticed the Academy's tendency to favor documentaries critical of Russia's president in 2018, when “Icarus” pulled off a surprise win in that category. In the last two years, the Oscar for Best Documentary Feature have gone to films critical of Putin or the War in Ukraine. At least one other has been nominated in that time. This year has brought another film about the invasion of Ukraine to the Documentary Feature category. “Porcelain War” at least has a different perspective than the previous films on the topic but the question does remain: Will it continue the pattern of Academy voters feeling like they are sticking it to a de-facto dictator by watching a movie that makes them angry at him? 

Before February of 2022, when Putin's “special military operation to demilitarize” Ukraine began, Slava Leontyev, Anya Stasenko, and Andrey Stefanov were artists. They fashioned sculptures of fantastical creatures out of porcelain that were then painted with colorful scenes or patterns. After the war began, their once peaceful lives changed forever. Slava began working as a machine gun trainer, helping turn normal Ukrainian citizens into battle-ready soldiers. Anya and Andrey began assisting the military as well. Despite being knee-deep in the conflict now, the trio continue to make art in defiance of this attempt to destroy their country. “Porcelain War” is largely composed of footage that Stasenko and Stefanov collected themselves. 

Ostensibly, “Porcelain War” is a movie about finding the will to create during a time of destruction. When missiles are falling from the sky every day, when Ukrainian citizens have had their lives utterly overturned and people are dying around them all the time, what value does something as prosaic as “art” have? Anya and Slava's work are mostly composed of cute little porcelain figures. Over the course of the film, we seem them make an owl, a very unicorn-like horse, and a super cute spiny lizard. This is not the kind of art that challenges the status quo or seeks to make a major political statement... However, when your home has been invaded and a foreign government is killing your neighbors, making anything at all becomes a revolutionary act. I believe that personal expression and exercises of imagination are a fundamentally hopeful and uniquely human attribute. The Ukrainians' art proves that they were there, that they existed, and that they did not allow a violent conflict to stifle the people they are. 

This is what “Porcelain War” claims to be about anyway. It's a very inspirational idea and one that the filmmakers, who are also the on-screen personalities, repeat a few times. They craft the grand metaphor, that the Ukrainian people are like porcelain, a material that can be shattered but is almost impossible to otherwise destroy. That's a nice bit of poetry and, if it paired with a film about making art during a time of tragedy, it might be more compelling. However, “Porcelain War” is only partially about the instinct to make things. Instead, much more of the film is devoted to on-the-ground interviews with the Ukrainian soldiers and footage of their fight against the Russians. 

“Porcelain War” is not as harrowing as “20 Days in Mariupol,” last year's Oscar winner for Documentary Feature. In fact, editors Brendan Bellomo, Aniela Sidorska, and Kelly Cameron seem to have a very different goal in mind. This is not a movie so much about documenting the horrors being inflicted on Ukraine by an invading force. It's more about the countrymen fighting back. Multiple montages are devoted to showing ordinary people, men and women, undergoing the training necessary to become killers. Tanks rolling down roads, rocket launchers firing, and soldiers loading their rifles are tensely photographed. There is footage from drones of bombs dropping on tanks. The tone here seems to be one of “Fuck yeah, Ukraine!” I think Putin is evil, the invasion of Ukraine is immoral, and people have the right to defend themselves. But I still felt super weird watching what is a self-admitted piece of propaganda, about a real war, with footage of actual combat. 

This is not an antiwar film, in other words. Which runs counter to the high-minded idea of art as a form of defiance and self-expression during a time of conflict. “Porcelain War” never attempts to correlate these two seemingly opposed instincts. The film will cut between footage of the artists making their sculptures, the soldiers admiring the little dragon, and bombs falling and guns firing. Much of the film is made up of interviews with the artists, discussing missing their families in other countries or their experiences during evacuation. “Porcelain War” repeatedly returns to Slava's dog, a brave little terrier named Frodo. That is the kind of personal, human-perspective of a war that you'd expect a doc like this to deliver. The movie attempts to re-center itself on its artistic ideas with animated sequences, bringing the paintings on the porcelain sculptures to life. These moments feel like they are from a totally different movie than shots of soldiers joking around and talking about their cause or shaky, handheld footage of running through a building during a firefight. 

Many of “Porcelain War's” sequences are beautifully photographed. The shots of the country home, plums of smoke in the distance from the near-by fighting, are haunting. The drone shots of the blasted out city are effecting. However, the film left me feeling seriously torn in other ways. I think war is a horrible act, even when it can be justified, in so much as such a thing can ever be justified. The tone the film takes ultimately left me uncomfortable. I think a keener focus on the artistic desire would have led to a more coherent film. Instead, “Porcelain War” is pulled between higher-minded goals and a piece of pro-Ukraine agitprop that doesn't interrogate the more difficult considerations of waging war. [6/10]