‘Real’ Review: Oleh Sentsov’s Ukrainian War Documentary Is Unplanned but Utterly Immersive (2024)

A lot of great cinema is made by happy accidents: certain intangible chemistries and tricks of timing that can’t be calculated even by the most exacting auteur. In the considerably rarer case of “Real,” the whole film is an accident, and one more vital than happy. Shot inadvertently while director Oleh Sentsov — not working as a filmmaker, but as a lieutenant in the Ukrainian Defense Forces — was holed up with his unit during a perilous battle in the early days of the war against Russia, the film captures the horror and claustrophobia of trench warfare with an immediacy that no big-budget fictional combat movie could hope to match, all courtesy of a GoPro camera on Sentsov’s helmet that he accidentally turned on while checking his equipment.

The result is both simple and hard to classify: In his director’s statement for “Real,” Sentsov rules out the terms “film” and “documentary,” though its cinematic pull and power are plain to see. Any cynical notions that the filming may not have been as unintentional as stated are thwarted by the relative lack of incident in the footage, which covers no particular crux point in the men’s plight as they anxiously await evacuation, and ends only when the camera battery runs out. Which isn’t to say “Real” wants for tension or urgent human drama: Premiering at the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in wholly unedited form, Sentsov’s film may not have the narrative breadth or shaping of recent Oscar winner “20 Days in Mariupol,” but stands beside it as a can’t-look-away dispatch from an ongoing atrocity.

Outside the tight remit of the film itself, “Real” also adds a compelling chapter to the storied career of Sentsov himself — a Crimean-born filmmaker and activist whose 2014 arrest and subsequent imprisonment for his participation in the Maidan Uprising prompted global protests and a 145-day hunger strike on his part, before his eventual release in 2019. Joining the Ukrainian army following Russia’s 2022 invasion may be a fearless move from a man who’s already been to the brink, but Sentsov isn’t out to heroize himself in a film essentially shot from his point of view. Obviously unseen throughout, he’s a spare and pragmatic vocal presence, often acting as a curt intermediary between the men in his unit and the commands given via a precious working radio.

Trapped with them in a cramped, soil-strewn trench, we likewise can’t see anything beyond it, though the juddering sounds of battle rage and ricochet above our heads. (Significant credit is owed to Igor Kazmirchuk for his vivid, unnerving sound post-production.) Gradually, however, as the men exchange and relay words, we mentally work out the lay of the land. It emerges that Sentsov — codenamed “Grunt” throughout — found shelter in the trench not long after his tank was destroyed by Russian fire. Help is on the way, though no one can say exactly when; in the meantime, ammunition, water and other supplies are running alarmingly low. What details and coordinates we can’t extract from scratchy radio bursts are made up for by the film’s clammy atmospheric immersion — the fear, barely stifled in the drawn, harrowed faces captured on camera, that this unlovely hollow might be the last place they ever see.

Some rueful humor is to be found amid the panic. “The day after tomorrow, there’ll be a new plan and we’ll go to f*cking Barcelona,” one soldier sighs. “And we’ll be f*cked in Barcelona too, 100%.” There’s no macho military posturing here, and the overriding mood in the trench turns out to be one of despair and desperation, over a war they’re still figuring out how to fight. “Real” (the codename of the military operation, but an apt title for the film’s unmodified candor) serves as a testament to their courage as well as their terror, though it’s hardly a vainglorious tribute — least of all when a closing title card bluntly refers to “the 22 Ukrainian soldiers [who] remain at Real forever.” Sentsov lived to tell the tale, or at least to find the footage. But there’s no end, much less any moral, in sight just yet.