Pamfir film review — Ukrainian drama portrays a pre-invasion tinderbox

Apparently set shortly before the Russian invasion in February 2022, the visually striking and consistently compelling Ukrainian drama Pamfir unfolds in a village on the border with Romania. The locals are getting ready for Malanka, the upcoming new year carnival. A Rabelaisian event with pagan origins, it finds the menfolk donning freaky hand-carved masks and setting off fireworks in a drunken frenzy, blithely unconcerned about the flammable dried sedge costumes on display.

Construction worker and local legend Leonid (Oleksandr Yatsentyuk) — nicknamed Pamfir (“Stone”) because of his astonishing strength and endurance — has come home for the occasion from work in Poland. Malanka is partly about transformation and change, which is what Leonid is hoping to achieve himself, having left behind a life of smuggling for a fresh start as an honest man. His wife Olena (Solomiia Kyrylova) and teenage son Nazar (Stanislav Potiak) are thrilled by his return and delighted with their gifts: a bike for Nazar, a grunty bout of lovemaking for Olena. In fact, Nazar so wants his dad to stay that he tries to stage a fire in the local church to consume Leonid’s vital paperwork — a ploy that goes badly wrong.

Leonid is forced to start smuggling again and becomes indebted to a local gangster. Seemingly everyone in the village has a hand in the criminal trade, from the priest to the mayor and the police. Even Pamfir’s mother is in on it, and only Olena, for her own complex reasons, wants him to quit.

Director Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk draws out terrific performances from the cast and slips with frictionless ease between tension, comedy and drama. There’s a similar effortlessness in the way he assembles the film’s big set pieces, especially during the last act when sinuous long takes, the tightly choreographed ensemble and eerily crisp cinematography and sound all lock into place like a bear trap ready to spring.

★★★★☆

In UK cinemas from May 5