This is a documentary about war. Brutal, savage conflict. In this instance, the focus is on the battle between Ukraine and Russia, a tension the movie states has percolated for centuries. By 2014, President Putin escalated the armed reserves and by 2022, sanctioned an invasion. As with every carnage carried out by adults, it is the children who suffer. This movie centres on those too young to willingly fight for their nation.
A staggering number of children have perished during this war; Children in the Fire estimates that more than 2,400 Ukrainian children have been killed or wounded. One of the interview subjects is a child so horribly disfigured that he has to hide his scars with a mask. Keeping upbeat, this boy practices harmonica and dreams about becoming a professional musician; the horror of conflict won’t stop him.
This film regularly cuts to animation in order to demonstrate the complexity of gunfire. In one idiosyncratic segment, a man passes a car riddled with bullets; a warning from Russia that this fate awaits any man foolish enough to combat them. The insidiousness of battle was covered from a woman’s perspective in Green Line (Sylvie Ballyot, 2024), but there’s something even more devastating about a narrative based on bloodshed when it stems from the mouth of a pre-adolescent. During a cartoon reenacment, director Evgeny Afineevsky shows that a girl ran down three floors in order to hug her mother when a missile burned their home to the ground. Although she survived the blast, the damage to a leg resulted in amputation. More hopefully, the docudrama shows images of this individual practicing on their prosthetic in real time.
Ukranian First Lady Olena Zelenska praised the resilience of this girl in a speech made for television. “This is about incredible love”, she beamed. Throughout the destruction, devastation and damages that was inflicted upon this nation, Ukraine seemingly never forgot to focus on the love that united the country. Invariably, many had to evacuate the country and travel elsewhere across Europe. “I have a dream that all our children will come home,” one man reflects to the camera,suggesting that it is a common goal each of them wish to fulfill. There is hope in Children in the Fire that a day will come when it will be safe for them to live their lives, free from the pain that has exiled them.
Many of the stories depicted are heartbreaking. One teenager remembers how happy she felt when she was finally able to ring her mother, being in a location where the pair could talk like parent and child; no bombs to interrupt. Guardians had to put their infants on a bus, far from their homes, praying that they could be safe. Again, Afineevsky opts to show this memory in animation, which helps the viewer empathise even further. By witnessing these events in the realm of a cartoon, a genre typically aimed at younger viewers, it helps the audience sit in the head of the subjects undergoing sub-human treatments.
Interspersed with live action segments, one participant recalls the battiness of the invasion. “We thought we were on top of things”, she sighs, ruminating on the regrets. What emerges from these people is that they were forced to grow up too quickly, acting with the street-smarts of a man/woman in their 30’s when they were kids. War is man’s greatest disservice to humanity. Whole villages disappear, as if they were never truly there. Bodies pile up. Widows have nothing to show for their marriages but photographs. And as this stunning work exhibits, children have to abandon playtime for survival. Maybe that should be considered the next time a leader decides to attack another region.
Children in the Fire just saw its world premiere during the 33rd edition of Raindance, which takes place in London between June 18th and 27th.
