The Battlefield Within

"Front Row" is a very moving new documentary about the encounter between a wounded Ukrainian soldier and a troupe of Ukrainian dancers working abroad

Oleksandr Budko and Alexis Tutunnique in a scene from the new documentary “Front Row”

The new documentary “Front Row” premieres this weekend as part of the Doc NYC Festival. Behind its rather ordinary title is a shockingly powerful film, centered on a young Ukrainian solder, Oleksandr Budko, a former barista and designer from Kyiv who loses both legs to a Russian mortar in the year following the Russian invasion. Through social media, his path crosses that of a Ukrainian dancer, Alexis Tutunnique, who is part of a pickup company of Ukrainian dancers based in The Hague, the United Ukrainian Ballet. The film traces their friendship, and Budko’s longing to find a way to dance with the company, to bridge the distance between his current physical state and their fine-tuned physicality. Budko’s optimism and hunger for life are beyond comprehension. Scenes of rehearsal and everyday life alternate with battleground footage—strangely everyday-seeming, until suddenly all hell breaks loose, and death looms surreally close. Soldiers laugh and make light of their situation, even when what they are living through is so extreme we can barely imagine it. The battleground follows the Ukrainians wherever they go. Even as they rehearse and perform in Europe and the US, their phones are a constant reminder and connection to what is happening back home, to friends in danger. The young male dancers suffer from guilt. And they worry. In one scene in the film, a young dancer takes a call from his father on the front as he is warming up at the barre. The father describes a terrifying mortar attack he has just survived, during which he was thrown into the air and covered in debris and the body parts of his fellow soldiers. “It was very close, son,” he says. “If something happens, please don’t forget me.” I think I cried through the whole movie.

The film is directed by the Dutch documentarian Miriam Guttman.

Screenings:
Saturday, November 16, 2024 at 6:15PM at the Village East by Angelika Sunday, November 17, 2024 at 8:45PM at the IFC Center