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Four years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, Kyiv-set Our House is on Fire by Alice Biletska depicts the dramatic initial phase of the war.
“Pushkin came to my home with tanks. Let’s read something Ukrainian. You’ll find something by Kozyubynskyi a little further down,” Sofia’s grandmother (Galina Korneeva) replies to her suggestion to read from the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Sofia (Anastasiia Pustovit) is an accomplished singer and planning her first major tour across the US. She returns to Kyiv from Los Angeles the day before Russia’s full-scale invasion to join her brother Simon’s (Vladyslav Mykhalchuk) wedding ceremony. As she receives a warm welcome from family and friends, the lively party takes the trip from her house, celebrating through the city, to a nightclub. Sofia reconnects with her ex, Max (Valivots Liubomyr), who didn’t follow her American dream all the way to Hollywood. During a loud altercation in front of the club, Russian bombs start dropping into the Ukrainian capital in the early morning hours of February 24th, 2022.
Our House is on Fire (Наш дім горит) often feels like a play due to its long camera shots, expressive acting, and recurring locations like the cozy house. Amidst the dramatic chaos, there are recurring glimmers of hope. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s call for the population to seek shelter is followed by Vladimir Putin’s de facto annexation of the Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Donetsk. Meanwhile, Sofia’s friend Tania gives birth to her baby, and the cold words of the Russian leader fade into the background. The group gathers in the warm light around the newborn in a shot that could also be a painting. On their way to the hospital, they avoid the highway clogged with people trying to escape and decide to take the road through the forest. “We’re not barbarians,” one of the Russian soldiers says while blocking a clearing and demanding Max’s identification. At first, they seem to let the van marked with the word “KIDS” turn around, but then they open fire, and everything changes.
“A strange hour around the globe has begun,” Sofia sings in a subway station where the residents of Kyiv are seeking refuge from the attacks. The lament, composed by Anastasiia Pustovit and Toms Auniņš, addresses the countless children abducted by the invaders—”orphans searching for their mothers.” Sofia’s parents managed to escape from besieged Kharkiv to Lviv in the west, but that’s not an option for Sofia. Max joins the army and ends up surprising her one morning as a silhouette in the kitchen. Opposite to her instincts, she decides to stay to care for wounded soldiers at the local hospital. Therefore she knows how to take care of Max, the sole survivor of his unit. Plagued by nightmares, the lines between reality and fiction gradually blur, making it difficult even for viewers to distinguish between them, thanks to Anastasiia Pustovit’s superb performance. Despite the gruesome events, Alice Biletska manages to end the film on a positive note astonishingly.
It’s important to remember that Our House is on Fire was filmed in Kyiv during the war. The challenges faced by cast and crew in making such an elaborate film amidst sheltering from air raids and fearing for the lives of their loved ones is difficult to comprehend. The Dzvinochok Boys’ Choir delivers a touching performance of the 17th-century Cossack ballad “Chorna Rillya Izorana” (“Black Field Plowed”), before morphing into a group of uniformed soldiers. “Скажи мені Боже” (“Tell Me, God”) by Maryna Krut (aka KRUTЬ) and the Khmelnytskyi Regional Symphony Orchestra is on the other end of the spectrum, delivering hope. Pretty much every department who worked on the film managed to contribute something special – from Tom Auniņš’ orchestral score, the at times frighteningly realistic sound design to the fantastic costume and set design. Following its premiere at the Cottbus Film Festival last November, Our House is on Fire hasn’t received a release date yet.
Final thoughts
Our House is on Fire depicts a group of young Ukrainians whose world was abruptly turned upside down following the Russian invasion. Amidst the four-year-long war, Alice Biletska succeeds in creating an intimate, suspenseful chamber drama with numerous heartbreaking moments, without showing the war for the most part. Protagonist Sofia undergoes a remarkable character development from a shy, responsibility-avoidant singer to taking care of wounded soldiers, a transformation which is not entirely comprehensible due to some leaps in time. The usually barely noticeable use of CGI in a couple of nightmare scenes and on the film poster, combined with the film’s minimal online presence, has led to a couple of false expectations shared online. Hopefully, this will soon change in order for the film to reach an actual audience, just as hope prevails that the idyllic ending depicted in the film will soon become a reality for the Ukrainian people.
The production company provided us with Our House is on Fire.
