Filled with amazing and powerful images of resistance on both a personal and mass scale, this film is what can result when you have a revolution in the age of ubiquitous cell phones and personal drones. And it leads to a kind of combination of visceral immediacy and near epic scope in the telling of the Ukraine's 3 month long citizens' revolt against a corrupt, unresponsive and lying government that would have been near impossible a handful of years earlier. This is experiencing a revolt from the inside; scary, intense, exciting – a powerful emotional roller coaster.
What it isn't, is an intellectually rigorous overview of the issues and conditions that led to the revolt, or what changes did and didn't result in the long term. Those are touched on, of course, but it's a fair criticism that's been leveled against the film, that the uninformed viewer (like me) comes away with only a schematic and simplistic view of the uprising. But, for me, that was enough.
The power of this film is the reminder that it is still possible for people to come together from very different places, Muslims and Catholics, left-wing students and aging military men, the poor and the middle-class – and to band together to overthrow a tyrant with a remarkable limiting of blood-shed. It's a film that will make you shed a tear for the potential for good and for change in the world, and that outweighs whatever shortcomings the film may have.
What it isn't, is an intellectually rigorous overview of the issues and conditions that led to the revolt, or what changes did and didn't result in the long term. Those are touched on, of course, but it's a fair criticism that's been leveled against the film, that the uninformed viewer (like me) comes away with only a schematic and simplistic view of the uprising. But, for me, that was enough.
The power of this film is the reminder that it is still possible for people to come together from very different places, Muslims and Catholics, left-wing students and aging military men, the poor and the middle-class – and to band together to overthrow a tyrant with a remarkable limiting of blood-shed. It's a film that will make you shed a tear for the potential for good and for change in the world, and that outweighs whatever shortcomings the film may have.