The movie, with its four vignettes about Ukraine, was the country’s submission for best international feature film for the Oscars.
When Natalya Vorozhbit’s modern war drama “Bad Roads” was selected as the Ukrainian submission for best international feature film for the 94th Academy Awards back in September, it failed to make enough of a dent with Oscar voters to earn a nomination. But times have changed, and the anthology film, playing now in theaters and on virtual cinemas, has garnered renewed attention for its wide release during the ongoing Russian invasion.
Viewers looking for precise commentary on current events will be disappointed, though this is hardly Vorozhbit’s fault. Rather, the four wartime stories in “Bad Roads” fall short on delivering any meaningful insight into the nature of conflict, relying instead on moments of lackluster tension and shock value that greatly overstay their welcome.
The most memorable vignette of the film, for better or worse, is its third, where a female journalist (Maryna Klimova) is held hostage by a sadistic soldier (Yuri Kulinich). The segment drags on interminably as the woman is beaten, tortured and humiliated by her captor while trying to appeal to his humanity, before the whole miserable ordeal is cut short by a brisk act of violence. The tidy ending makes the lead-up feel, regrettably, like a waste of time.
The other stories in “Bad Roads” feel undercooked at best, even if they may present a compelling premise. The film’s opening vignette, which depicts a tipsy school headmaster (Igor Koltovskyy) trying to get through a road checkpoint without a passport, shows how the collision between war and civilian life can produce results that are both brutal and laughably nonsensical. If only the rest of the film dared to engage with the same complexity.
Bad Roads
Not rated. In Ukrainian and Russian, with subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes. In theaters and on virtual cinemas.
Source: Movies - nytimes.com
