The
subtitle of Winter on Fire: Ukraine’s
Fight for Freedom indicates the stance taken by Evgeny Afineevsky’s 2015
documentary on the astonishing events in Kiev of November 2013 to February 2014. He traces the escalation from the initial suspension
by President Viktor Yanukovych of discussions prior to signing an association
agreement with the European Union, prompting peaceful protests and the
occupation of the city’s Maïdan
Nezalezhnosti, Independence Square; the passing of draconian legislation
to counter the protests and the murderous assaults by the security forces as
the confrontations grew uglier; and finally Yanukovych’s undignified flight to sanctuary
in Russia leading to the formation of a new government. Yanukovych made a wise decision to leave
because he deserves to appear at The Hague for presiding over this barbarism.
Recorded
by 28 camera operators using a variety of equipment, Winter on Fire covers events in the square and other key locations,
intercut with interviews by activists given during and after the occupation,
and with occasional very brief footage of the wider domestic and international
political context. The focus is the
appalling violence inflicted on the demonstrators, making it sometimes hard to
watch as the government’s militarised police wield batons and boots on their
helpless victims, and later take to shooting them first with plastic bullets
then with live ammunition.
In the
face of this brutality the square’s occupiers’ sense of purpose remains firm as
they face the fascistically-dressed paramilitaries and their hired thug auxiliaries
with whatever makeshift weapons are at hand, but most of all with their
comradeship and determination to win a better future. The scenes of heroism and sacrifice cannot
leave the viewer unmoved; the visuals were dramatic enough on their own without
the need for the intrusive and unnecessarily manipulative dramatic music which
was overlaid at times. The demonstrators
display confidence in forming their own ad
hoc democratic institutions, sidelining the ineffectual opposition
politicians – including Vitali Klitschko – who sought to co-opt the desperate
struggle for their own electoral purposes (though Klitschko’s rebuff did not
prevent him later becoming mayor of the city).
The film certainly acts as a monument to the people’s unity and indomitable
will in the face of seemingly overwhelming force. However, it also leaves the sense that it is
covering familiar territory.
I was
fortunate to attend a screening at the Arts Picturehouse in Cambridge with Afineevsky
present for a question and answer session which proved to be as illuminating as
what we had just seen. He rather acted
as if Winter on Fire is
groundbreaking in capturing Euromaidan as it unfolded, whereas the 93-day
protest has been the subject of a number of films already, some of which have
been shown in the annual Cambridge Festival of Ukrainian Film. Winter
on Fire is a worthy if flawed
addition to the canon, but coming after others on the same subject it feels as
if the issues have moved on; in fact the 2015 Cambridge festival showed Serhii Andrushko’s
2014 Post Maidan, which explores the
anticlimactic aftermath of the giddy heights of the Maidan occupation. Perhaps
the audience member who asked Afineevsky about the tension between the
events depicted in his film, which exhibited such a sense of unity, and the
fracturing of the nation which followed (a consequence only briefly touched in
in the closing seconds) had this datedness in mind.
Afineevsky has captured some of the variety of those
who took part, young and old and from various walks of life, including the
significant role of religious leaders, though not those with political
affiliations on the far left and right who were directly involved but have been
airbrushed here. When asked about dissenting voices, notably
those who supported Yanukovych, he tried to give the impression that the
Ukrainian population was overwhelmingly hostile to the President’s actions in
distancing the country from closer ties with the EU. The statistics do not bear that out, as there
was widespread support for the competing options of forging ties with Russia or
with both Russia and the EU. To suggest
that the situation was unambiguously ‘The People versus Viktor Yanukovych’ is
frankly dishonest. Kiev is not Ukraine.
As an audience member pointed out, even with a
flawed electoral process Yanukovych was popular enough to be elected. The resident in Maidan is Everywhere (2015) complaining about protesters blocking
cars is a rare individual in any of the Maidan films in not being fully
supportive of the movement against Yanukovych.
It is easy to forget, in marvelling at the numbers involved in the
square, how many weren’t there. In terms
of an agenda, it was curious that Afineevsky was accompanied at the Cambridge
screening by someone from the Ukrainian embassy, which raises issues about his
film’s independence (footage shot from the Berkut
police side is included, which possibly came from government sources rather
than Afineevsky’s camera operators).
There may be a motive here over and above celebrating the bravery of the
Maidan occupiers at a time when the present Ukrainian government in turn is
mired in controversy, with a pressing need to stress national unity.
Afineevsky
was evasive in many of his responses to question after the Cambridge screening,
though to be fair he pointed out he is a filmmaker, not a politician (he has
also said in interviews that he is not a journalist, though how one can be a good
documentarist without being a journalist at the same time is unclear). Judging it on its own merits, Winter on Fire is highly polished, as
one would expect with Netflix finance involved, and consequently it has received
wider distribution than earlier works on the subject which had less marketing
clout. Netflix of course had previously
financed The Square, about the 2011 uprising
in Egypt which also ended in disappointment.
Winter on Fire deserved its
2016 Oscar nomination (losing to Amy
in the documentary feature category), but by concentrating on the highlights it
lacked the powerful rawness of Sergei Loznitsa’s 2014 Maidan
which better captured the boredom of the occupation as well as the visceral
action. More importantly, now that some
time has passed one might have expected a broader perspective on those
momentous weeks. Gripping as it is, Winter on Fire’s simplistic narrative
and lack of analysis means that it is far from being the last word on Euromaidan.
I’d like
to thank Cambridge Ukrainian Studies, part of the Department of Slavonic
Studies at the University of Cambridge, for arranging this screening, and
Evgeny Afineevsky for giving us his time.
