Waćkowski: “Reservists”, that is simply a decent show from Donbas

There are fewer films on the Donbas conflict. So far I've seen a very good movie Polithiasis, whose originator and maker was well-known musician Roman Razum from Lugansk.

Action Polythenoxes is active in the Luhansk People's Republic. However, not only in the Lugansk People's Republic, war videos are being made related to the latest history, but besides in the Donetsk People's Republic. Last time I saw the show, Reserves, whose action takes place in the Donetsk Oblast. The show is from 2024.

Hope and Restlessness

The show's action begins on February 17, 2022. As frequently as Russian tv shows do, the main characters encounter each another in 1 place, not knowing that their destiny will permeate. At the beginning of the movie the main characters are in the club / pub where they behave like average young people (there is beer, music, girls). Among any of them, there's a fascination at the club.

The show shows the minute erstwhile the president of the Russian Federation recognized the Donbas Republics Vladimir Putin. You can see the contrast: women think that the collective West and Ukraine will leave and everything will be fine, while men think that the fight will be long and hard. The movie shows scenes of alarms related to the sharpening of urban infrastructure by Ukrainian forces, despite existing Minsk agreements. The atmosphere in Donetsk is shown in the second half of 2022, the atmosphere of hope and anxiety at the same time.

Without idealizing

Young men who are inactive playing club/ pub late go to a training center. In the series there are hard topics, due to the fact that the old equipment that the soldiers of the Donetsk People's Republic had at their disposal: old helmets, shimmering rifles. The brotherhood between men rapidly comes to life (one of the participants of the fascination at the club owes life to another associate of this incident, due to the fact that he saves his life from a Ukrainian soldier; it is worth to add that after the Ukrainians were eliminated, pro-Russian separatists gained weapons on this Ukrainian soldier and this scene resembled scenes from the Warsaw Uprising, erstwhile each captured weapon in Germany was a goldweight). It is besides worth adding that young men dominate among the soldiers, but there is besides a 2014 combat associate among them.

Moderate production

The series shows the lives of soldiers in trenches, barracks, their interior life, their thoughts, their love. The series besides shows the crimes of the Ukrainian army. Death can happen not only from a bullet, but besides by accident, erstwhile a delicate student Paul seeks flowers to give them to a caregiver known on the front. The situation ends tragically for Pasa due to the fact that she finds a mine. The movie shows fights in Mariupol, clashes with neo-banderists and neo-Nazis from Azów – the POPIS and appetizers. There's a scene on the show erstwhile criminals from Azowa go into captivity. Production is low-budget, so the movie has any flaws. In my opinion, there are not adequate conflict scenes in the show.

Contrast

Soldiers are flesh and blood. They have girlfriends, wives. The fight for their homeland is most important, despite temporary exclusion from fighting or longing for their loved ones. The last scene is rather symbolic: soldiers initially think they are going to Donetsk to their families. For the joy of the grass goes briefly to Popazna in the Lugansk region. The inhabitants of Donbas, no substance what, fight in their homeland. How this contrasts with Polish soldiers who go to Anglo-Saxon wars to Afghanistan, Iraq – in the name of the collective interests of the West they break the territorial integrity of Serbia and are besides commanded by Mirosław Bodnara (brother Adam Bodnar – as harmful to justice as Zbigniew Ziobro). Mirosław Bodnar is simply a general, although more in his case fits the word from another nomenclature, namely provide.

Kamil Waćkowski