Article by Emidio Sciamanna

Translation by Vittorio Cavalli

The Kyiv of 1968, depicted by Stanislav Gurenko and Andrii Alf’erov in Dissident, is not a vibrant urban symphony like the avant-garde Berlin of Walter Ruttmann, but a grey, oppressive sprawl of streets and buildings constantly hit by a violent and unrelenting rain, a ghost of the Soviet Union that looms, heavy and suffocating, over the shoulders of the Ukrainian population. In the dissonant flow of a city in motion, the dreams, anxieties, and illusions of individuals abandoned to their fate intertwine, tormented by solitude and in perpetual conflict between a peaceful struggle for independence and a burning desire for rebellion.

This painful tension is mirrored in the film’s protagonist, Oleg, a former Ukrainian soldier who has just returned home after years of imprisonment. The challenges of rebuilding his life, caught between a wife who wants a quiet life and a writer friend with mysterious ambitions, clash with the ambiguity of a peace that is only superficial, shaken by student uprisings and bloody repressions.

Marked by a fragmented and unstable narrative, much like the political situation of the country itself, Oleg’s gaze, disoriented, is cast toward an uncertain future. His idealistic desire to sacrifice himself for the homeland is a fire that burns within him, ready to flare up, feeding daily on the disillusionments he is forced to face. A melancholic spark that tries to revive a freedom now suffocated, a faint hope still tragically relevant today.