David Gutnik captures the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine from eye-level in his documentary Rule of Two Walls. Shot in the early months of 2022, Gutnik’s film brings us to Lviv, a city 70 kilometers from the border of Poland, known for its cobblestone streets and Mediterranean flair. Now, air raids dominate the city’s soundscape, leaving everyone on edge — or worse, numb. Despite the constant threat of violence, Lviv itself is far from Russia, unlike cities such as Kharkiv, where the war feels “more tangible.” Because of its geographical location, Lviv works as a makeshift haven for Ukrainian artists. Their stories of and reflections on war-torn Ukraine lead the film, providing the film viewer with a window into an everyday life that oscillates from routine to horrific.
Rule of Two Walls combines elements of both participatory and reflexive documentary that pierce through the film’s episodic narrative. Slotted into various chapters titled “Shelter,” “Hand of God,” and “Bucha,” Gutnik appears intermittently throughout these segments, speaking off camera with all of his subjects. Often seated in the backseat of a car or the loveseat of a living room, the director, who is Ukrainian American, observes Lviv and its urban environment through the film’s talking heads, who teach us about their life and art during war. Eventually, the film becomes reflexive. Through a series of slow reveals, we learn that most of Gutnik’s subjects are actually filmmakers working on Rule of Two Walls. Their stories, while moving and personal, are somewhat staged, demystifying the filmmaking process, but also proving extremely important because their interviews and memories serve as first-hand accounts of the war in Ukraine.
Despite the constant threat of violence, an exploration of daily life is central to a Rule of Two Walls. We attend gallery openings with Lyana, the director of the Lviv Municipal Art Center, whose exhibition spaces double as bomb shelters, and jam sessions with her boyfriend Stephan. The war is never far from anyone’s mind, but no one puts their life on hold. Two women chip away at hidden frescos that were whitewashed by the Soviets, while another creates Easter pysanky with crosses rather than folk designs to commemorate the individuals who installed self-made crosses for their fallen family members. Artists create as a form of resistance to their current circumstance, but it soon becomes abundantly clear that preserving Ukrainian culture is at the forefront of most people’s practices because it is on the cusp of erasure.
Like the National Art Museum of Ukraine, whose exhibitions are boxed and hidden away, everyone in a Rule of Two Walls is in a state of transition. Gutnik reflects this idea with his constant movement. Traveling by train and car, often shooting through a rearview window, Gutnik is never in one place for long. He and his director of photography, Volodymyr “Vova” Ivanov, capture sandbagged monuments, destroyed roads that are “repaired” with wooden planks, and Ukrainian volunteer units making Molotov cocktails. It seems like everyone is preparing for the big blow, or at least aware of their situation, a notion reinforced by the film’s title: a “rule of two walls” refers to the best place to hide if you have to shelter in place, perhaps the ultimate liminal space.
Extreme passages of death intercept a Rule of Two Walls. During one early scene, Gutnik cuts to the bombing of a local market. Now thoroughly on the ground, we watch as a cameraman holds steady while multiple rounds of shelling fall on the building, preventing rescue workers from saving people. Eventually, we move closer to the action where we find bodies that are charred beyond recognition — intense and upsetting scenes like this are frequent in Gutnik’s film. During an interview with Vova, the DP admits that he feels nothing about the war. We later learn that Vova transported hundreds of dead bodies from Bucha, the site of mass murder of Ukrainian civilians and prisoners of war. In the film’s final chapter, Gutnik takes us to the scene of the crime. Decaying bodies are littered everywhere; some people are decapitated while others have been shot in the head. These images are horrific, but these uncensored images of Ukraine are essential in moving the war away from abstraction and toward reality.
In a Rule of Two Walls, people come first and the war comes second. Gutnik doesn’t completely bombard viewers with war-torn images because he doesn’t want them to lose their power. He understands that living is as important as dying, and this is why he fixes so much of his film on daily routines. We need to see people living through historic events, no matter how horrific they are. Perhaps this is also why Gutnik opens his film with two lovers waking up and laughing together. Soon their morning will be interrupted by air sirens, and their basic human rights are under constant attack. But they still get up everyday.
DIRECTOR: David Gutnik; DISTRIBUTOR: Monument Releasing; IN THEATERS: August 16; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 17 min.
