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russman3.0

This film's a riot

Joe3.5

Conventional filmic wisdom states that if you want an audience to relate to a group of people, you pick a single character to represent it, then humanize him or her with personal details. He's got a wife and kids at home, he loves his dog, he likes to go bowling, his eyes look sad when no one's looking, etc etc etc. This is a pretty powerful contradiction of that approach, or at least proof that it's not the only way - there's no narrative or personal through-line whatsoever here, merely a series of detached, static camera shots showing huge groups of people going about the business of civil unrest, and yet it's 100X more humanizing and powerful than the visions of protesters (or "rioters") we see in the mainstream media. Yes, it's a little bit taxing on the ol' attention span, and yes, it could have probably stood a little bit of trimming, but I can't help but wish that Sergei Loznitsa (or someone like him) was around to capture events like this all over the world.

maneleeo3.5

Sergei Loznitsa's not getting the archival footage and piecing up History as he does with his other documentaries. Here, he is capturing History himself as the events unravel through time. Maidan Revolution, also known as the Revolution of Dignity evolved as something pacifical to extremely violent, one can see the events progress through time.