‘Rule of Two Walls’ Review: Ukrainian Art Doc Explores Being Human in Times Determined to Rob Us of Humanity

The latest in a flurry of documentaries about Ukrainians making art amid Russia's invasion, David Gutnik's film examines humanity's ability to keep pursuing self-actualization when our lives are threatened.

In the opening moments of “Rule of Two Walls,” two Ukrainian lovers lounge in bed together, trading inside jokes while the last few glimmers of light slip away. It’s a moment that could be found in any number of romantic films — until it’s interrupted by the ear-piercing wail of air raid sirens.

Ukrainian filmmaker David Gutnik’s new documentary utilizes a hybrid approach that combines traditional nonfiction filmmaking with elements of narrative drama. It follows real Ukrainians who refuse to flee the country and have doubled down on their commitment to making art, but certain scenes are scripted. And while the convenient timing and intimacy point to the opening scene as manufactured drama, it doesn’t make the metaphor any less truthful.

“Rule of Two Walls” is a tableau of contradictions that captures humanity’s unrelenting desire to create and connect and the barbaric circumstances forcing so many Ukrainians to focus on more immediate threats. Life isn’t stopping in Ukraine, no matter how much Vladimir Putin might want it to — but the most magical moments are never guaranteed to last longer than the blink of an eye.

Gutnik’s film episodically alternates between grotesque footage of Russia’s war crimes and vignettes of Ukrainian painters, rock musicians, photographers, and porcelain artists as they try to explain their decisions to remain in Ukraine and keep flexing their creative muscles in such harrowing times. Everyone in the film more or less concedes that it’s an act that can’t be justified with reason. Common sense dictates that the only two rational paths would be to flee Ukraine for another country’s safety or devote oneself fully to the war effort.

But like love, religion, nationalism, and all of the other best and worst things in life, art is not rational. It’s an urge that we feel deep in our souls, often prompting us to devote our existence to creating and consuming it despite no real evolutionary benefit. It’s a fundamentally human endeavor and an unprovoked invasion from a foreign autocrat who sees them as less than that isn’t enough to rob these Ukrainians of their humanity.

The ahistorical explanation that Putin often offers for his invasion is that Ukrainians are really just Russians who were separated from their home country with the fall of the Soviet Union. He argues he’s reuniting Ukraine’s national identity with the culture to which it rightfully belongs. Gutnik’s subjects roundly reject that notion, and many explain that they’re drawn to art precisely because they feel the need to preserve the aesthetic and religious traditions that shaped the Ukraine they grew up in. Everyone is smart enough to understand that art won’t actually win the war, but it gives the nation something worth fighting for. And even if things take a turn for the absolute worst, they see the importance of leaving behind artifacts of their cause.

Without a clear narrative structure, “Rule of Two Walls” is often left at the mercy of its subjects’ intellects. Some scenes are more profound than others, but Gutnik’s willingness to let people speak for themselves creates some undeniably interesting moments. One especially impressive sequence sees two Ukrainian men discussing the meaning and validity of the old adage, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” The term is generally understood to mean that even the most principled atheists would find themselves praying to some kind of god in moments when their lives were endangered. But after living through the war firsthand, one artist came to the conclusion that the cause and effect should be flipped. Risking their lives doesn’t drive people to believe in things bigger than themselves, but the belief in those things is what leads them there in the first place.

“If you really believed in nothing,” he says in the film, “You’d never find yourself in a foxhole to begin with.”

That’s the closest Gutnik comes to illuminating how his subjects can compartmentalize and spend portions of their days thinking of poetry and porcelain while their streets are filled with charred human remains. The filmmaker often points the camera at himself during these interviews, a subtle Brechtian touch that illustrates that he is as burdened by his own humanity as everyone he films is by theirs. Like them, he can’t quite figure out what drives him to stay and make movies while civilization as he knows it threatens to crumble around him. But just like them, he can’t bring himself to stop.

Grade: B+

A Monument release, “Rule of Two Walls” opens at the Laemmle Royal in Los Angeles on Friday, October 25.

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