Between before and after by Marichka Lukianchuk
An author-made videopoem by Kyiv-based artist Marichka Lukianchuk with fellow filmmaker Elena Baronnikova and dancer Angelina Andriushina. Music is by DakhaBrakha – Весна Чілі. Lukianchuk explains the title on Vimeo:
2 years ago Lena and me filmed some material for the project that did not mean to happen then. Last week Lena wrote to me, reminding about it. Now all the pre-war footage has its own story under the war condition.
Now, in times “between before and after”, when they don’t let us make a step forward, we learn to fly
Click through for the text of her poem in Ukrainian.
I was struck by the various creative juxtapositions of pre-war and wartime footage of the same places, and then the equally creative shots of the dancer in the second half. I shared it with my co-blogger Marie Craven to get her reaction. She responded:
It amazes me that artists can even speak in war time, let alone with such moving serenity and hope.
I increasingly dislike overt political polemic in films (never liked it much even as I sometimes have engaged with it in my own films). Perhaps the thing I dislike the most is that it is usually for an audience of the converted and therefore somewhat pointless.
This film transcends that completely in my view.
Couldn’t agree more. And I can really get behind the sentiment in the poem’s closing lines:
I’m just asking for one thing:
let me not forget
how to get surprised by* the good things
in times when
you can no longer be surprised by the bad ones
*or “how to marvel at” according to Google Translate
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Dave Bonta is a poet, editor, and web publisher from the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania.
