David R. Walker

Archive for the ‘Damian Kocur’ Category

Under the Volcano

Director: Damian Kocur

Cast: Roman Lutskyi, Anastasiya Karpenko, Sofia Berezovka

Running time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Film Rating: 6.5 out of 10

Film Festival: European Film Festival

Language: Ukrainian with English Subtitles.

Polish director Damian Kocur’s film Under the Volcano explores the effect of the 2022 Russian Invasion of the Ukraine has on a blended Ukrainian family on holiday in the Canary Islands in Tenerife at the time of the invasion.

Kocur’s family drama focuses on a father Roma played by Ukrainian actor Roman Lutskyi and his new wife Nastia played by Anastassiya Karpenko, and their son Fedir aged 6 and Roma’s daughter from another marriage Sofia played by Sofia Berezovka.

The happy go lucky Ukrainian family are enjoying the sites of Tenerife and when their plan to return to Kyiv in the Ukraine is thwarted as they discover that Russia has invaded. Their flights are cancelled and the Spanish hotel manager says they can stay in Tenerife for as long as is required.

Their stranded situation in Tenerife is amplified when Sofia, the teenage girl meets an African immigrant who came to Tenerife by boat. Their stilted relationship reflects two people stranded in a geographic location in which they had no choice to be there and seemingly cannot escape from.

The main tension in this family drama comes from the strained relationship between husband and wife as Roma realizes that when he returns to the Ukraine he will have to join his friends in the military front lines. Nastia will have to remain in Warsaw as a refugee with her young son Fedir and her mother.

Unfortunately, Under the Volcano does not have a good script and many scenes are drawn out and just involve fighting. The pace of this film is very slow and there is no dimensionality to an otherwise fascinating topic – what do families do when they are away from their own country when it has been invaded?

Besides the beautiful settings of Tenerife, Under the Volcano could have been a much better film, but its narrative meanders pointlessly so that one crucial scene of the family getting lost on a mountainous hike sums up the efforts of a mediocre scriptwriter.

Director Damian Kocur’s film about refugees and war’s effect on the family needs to be sharpened in terms of pace and tone. While Under the Volcano is not a bad film, it could have been so much better. There was so much more to unpack on this subject and the director seem to hold back.

Under the Volcano gets a film rating of 6.5 out of 10 and is a slow paced family drama about the effects of an ongoing European war which has reshaped that continent security concerns.