A Simple Soldier
(Ukraine, 96 mins.)
Dir. Juan Camilo Cruz, Artem Ryzhykov
Programme: TIFF Docs (World premiere)
As the drone soars above a landscape filled with burned cars, dead bodies, and other markers of conflict, acclaimed cinematographer Artem Ryzhykov (The Russian Woodpecker) reflects on how we often romanticize war. He notes that in movies and books, such conflicts are either celebrated or given a dreamy atmosphere. However, the real thing is far more unsettling. It’s a seemingly never-ending parade of violence where the “pain is raw, and the law is madness.”
Stuck in the middle of the tornado that is the Russia-Ukraine war for over a year at this point, Ryzhykov can barely see what life is like beyond the death and destruction swirling around him. In the gripping documentary A Simple Soldier, Ryzhykov and co-director Juan Camilo Cruz (Country of Lost Children) bring audiences to the front line of the conflict to offer an unflinching look at the tragedy of war.
Obsessed with cameras since he was a teenager, Ryzhykov has been relentlessly filming every aspect of his life for years. Acting as another ligament on his body, everything from touring his homeland to introducing his then-girlfriend, and now wife, Irusya to his family is documented by his ever-present lens. This desire to process the world around him through film continued in February 2022 when he set out to make a documentary about the looming war and how it impacted citizens who chose to take up arms.
Believing that his camera was his weapon, a sharp tool that could cut to the heart of humanity, the filmmaker clearly thought that making a documentary would help change minds about the war. What he did not anticipate was how the war would change him. The sight of burning buildings and the terrifying sounds of bomb blasts, which frequently had him dropping to the ground for cover, on day one were the first alarm bells that woke him up to the reality he would have to face.
Ryzhykov may have envisioned himself as merely the cameraman, but those around him saw him as only a soldier. In one scene, the audience witnesses his commanding officer, Medich, chew him out for disobeying orders so he could film footage on the front lines. Another moment, the filmmaker is forced to repeatedly practice reloading his weapon as he explains why he skipped the military training portion of school. As a fellow soldier notes, he may have escaped serving in the army in his youth, but no one escapes war.
The long reaching tentacles of war place their tight grip over Ryzhykov and several of the soldiers he interacts with over the course of the film. A perfect example of this are his various conversations with Marta, a woman conflicted by whether her duty is to her country or her own children. Working on the emergency medical team, she had promised her husband and fellow soldier, Serhiy, that she would leave the fight on its one-year anniversary. He wants her to be there for their kids, who they sent to America for safety, but she longs to see the battle to its very end.
A Simple Soldier frequently highlights how war and the notion of fighting for something bigger than oneself can cause many to prioritize their military brothers and sisters in the struggle over their families. This is something that Ryzhykov constantly wrestles with throughout the film.
Despite pleas from his mother and wife, the latter of whom seeks refuge in Poland, to leave the war and the film behind, the filmmaker cannot untangle himself from the fight. Making matters worse is that he cannot fully articulate to them why he stays, causing each new Face Time conversation with his wife to drip with unspoken fear and sadness on both sides. In providing an honest look at a soldier’s life, A Simple Soldier reinforces the idea that those living outside the suffocating bubble of war cannot truly grasp how devastating it is. The daily acts of violence, the constant death and decay, and more eat away at a person mentally and emotionally.
As Ryzhykov notes at one point, he no longer has any emotion when a fellow soldier is killed because he is surrounded by so many dead bodies wherever he goes. Stripped of his hopes and dreams, he has become a cold machine, one who starts contemplating how he wants his death to be rather than what he wants out of the future.
By providing the audience direct access to Ryzhykov’s experiences and thoughts over a lengthy period, A Simple Soldier offers a riveting and terrifying examination of the way war erodes everything it touches. Whether capturing the chaos of battle, the sense of pending doom as Russian soldiers stealthily close in on their bunker in the woods, or hearing Ryzhykov reflect on the ways humans are not born for such conflicts, the film offers a truly captivating portrait of how horrific such conflicts are.
A Simple Soldier understands that there are no winners in war. It offers waves of hardship, destruction, and emotional and physical trauma that are far from simple.
