In these days when the war in Ukraine dominates our thinking and emotions, I have continued to reflect on the potency of film to lay bare the below-the-surface damage of war. Two recent films that highlight different aspects of this are Natural Light by the Hungarian director Dénes Nagy and the Kosovo film Hive by Blerta Basholli. Both films were released in 2021 and were shown on the 2021 film festival circuit, receiving several awards.

Natural Light is set on the eastern front in Hungary during the Second World War. In that war Hungary was aligned with Germany as one of the Axis powers. Corporal Istvan Semetka leads his army troop into the forests of Western Ukraine to round up pro-Soviet partisans. When they come across a village, they demand to be fed and to get information on partisans. Through brutality and fear they force these village people into further submission. The natural light is fading. Everyone has reason to fear. Everyone is starving. Everyone can be killed at any time in skirmishes or for suspicion of disloyalty. Reprisals are brutal and without any proper investigation. In this inhuman world, can anyone feel anything and hold on to moral values? Are there any small brave choices to make at all? This is an ever darkening, colourless world we are allowed to peek into. Not an action war film, but even more chilly through laying bare the psychological damage to everyone who is drawn into this hellish reality.

Hive plays in country-side Kosovo after the Balkan wars of the 1990s. It is based on a true story of a Kosovan woman, Fahrije Hoti, whose husband went missing during the war. As many other women, she is trying to find out what the Serb forces have done with her husband, where his body is dumped. Without any finality to the case she cannot move on. The patriarchal society keeps her in her place and is suspicious of her motives. She takes care of the beehive her husband started, trying to sell the honey on the market. To provide for her children she begins, together with others who are in the same deadlock, a ‘female-only collective’ making and selling a dish of red peppers. In subtle ways we are drawn into the grief she initially experiences alone, but gradually finds ways to share it with her children, her father and the other women. A very moving film that helps us to enter into the deep grief and shattered realities of deeply vulnerable people from the consequence of war and conflict.

Both these films made me think of the war (or better anti-war!) films that have left impressions on me. If you want to be educated and come emotionally closer to those who have suffered deeply (and are suffering now!), I have listed 10 titles below. Some of them have an article / recommendation elsewhere on this site.

• Come and See (1985) – Elem Klimov, Russia
• Ivan’s Childhood (1962) – Andrei Tarkovsky, Russia
• In the Fog (2012) – Sergej Loznitsa, Ukraine
• The Painted Bird (2019) – Vaclav Marhoul, Czech Rep.
• Grave of the Fireflies (1988) – Isao Takahata, Japan
• The Ascent (1977) – Larisa Shepitko, Soviet Union
• The Thin Red Line (1998) – Terrence Malick, USA
• Reflection (2021) – Valentyn Vasyanovych, Ukraine
• Tangerines (2013) – Zaza Urushadze, Georgia
• Beanpole (2019) – Kantemir Balagov, Russia