Ukrainian documentary filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov’ latest documentary film “2000 Meters to Andriivka”, which won the Directing Award when it was premiered at the World Cinema Documentary section of the Sundance Film Festival early in last year, is a pretty grim experience to say the least. Closely following a battle over one Ukrainian village in 2023, the documentary gives us a vivid and close look into the horror and devastation of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian War, and it feels all the more depressing considering how things are still getting worse in Ukraine even at this point.

The documentary mainly consists of not only what Chernov and his fellow journalist Alex Babenko recorded with their camera but also a bunch of body-cam footage clips recorded by a number of Ukrainian soldiers on the battlefield near a village named Andriivka during that time. Thanks to the latter, we are thrown into one perilous situation right from the beginning of the documentary, and this effectively sets the overall tone of the documentary before it begins its main narrative.

As reflected by the very title of the documentary, the Ukrainian army was fairly close to liberating Andriivka during that time, but, as Chernov’s phlegmatic narration explains to us, the Russian army was surely ready to stop its opponent by any means necessary. There was only one possible route which was a very narrow forest area surrounded by minefields and trenches, and those Ukrainian soldiers had to advance bit by bit along this route even though they could be heavily attacked at any point.

Considering how much it has been devastated by the ongoing battle, liberating Andriivka seemed rather meaningless, but most of those Ukrainian soldiers accompanied by Chernov were willing to fight more for their country nonetheless. From time to time, Chernov talked a bit with some of them, and their impromptu interview scenes feel poignant when Chernov tells us how many of them died in one way or another. We are amused a bit when one young solider and Chernov come to find some common area between them, but then we come to learn that this young soldier was unfortunately killed on another battlefield several months later.

As the Ukrainian soldiers continued to get closer to Andriivka, the opposing Russian soldiers attacked them more, and the documentary gives us several strikingly intense moments to remember. I must point out that those body-cam footage clips often look like the live-action version of video game demonstration, but this impression quickly goes away as we become more aware of the imminent peril faced by those Ukrainian soldiers. No matter how quickly they think and act, they can get themselves killed at any point, and their increasingly grim circumstance comes to overwhelm us more than expected.

The documentary occasionally provides bits of background information, and we get more understanding of how despairing things are really in many aspects. While the Ukrainian army was confident in its ongoing counterattack operation against its enemies, but the Russian army remained as a formidable opponent despite many setbacks in their invasion plan, and the battle over Andriivka eventually became stuck in stalemate even though the Ukrainian army managed to advance toward the village bit by bit.

Needless to say, the documentary does not overlook the human toils behind this battle. At one point later in the documentary, a soldier becomes seriously shell-shocked after another dangerous moment on the battlefield, and it is harrowing to observe how his face looks hard and numb even while a lot of things are happening around him. As following the funeral of one particular soldier who was once a truck driver before the war was begun, the documentary shows how many people in his village including his mother grieved over his death, and there is a somber but powerful moment when the camera simply looks over a cemetery filled with a lot of newly added graves.

Around the point where the battle over Andriivka finally came to end, there came some relief as expected, but Chernov expresses weary skepticism in his narration. As many of us know too well, there is still no end in sight for the Russo-Ukrainian war, and now it is the matter of which one will endure longer in the end. It goes without saying that Russia will stagnate Ukraine by any means necessary, and that will certainly corner Ukraine more than before.

On the whole, “2000 Meters to Andriivka”, which was selected as the Ukrainian submission to Best International Film Oscar (It was also included in the shortlist for Best Documentary Oscar, by the way) is another solid work from Chernov, who won an Oscar for his previous documentary “20 Days in Mariupol” (2023). Although it is relatively less engaging compared to “20 Days in Mariupol” because of the rather distant attitude, it is still worthwhile to watch as another important documentary to be added the growing list of the Russo-Ukrainian war documentaries, and I appreciate its visceral qualities while admiring Chernov and his crew’s dedicated efforts. As far as I can see from his two documentaries, he is quite determined to follow and then record the war to the end, and I can only hope that his possible next Russo-Ukrainian war documentary will be a bit less grim at least.