Pamfir

Ideas of man and beast wrestle with one another in Dmytro Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s unsettling debut. He draws on the pagan mask-wearing traditions of the preparation for the Ukranian Malanka carnival to heighten the primal imagery of his tale of a family man who becomes increasingly desperate.

Leonid (played with bruising heft by Oleksandr Yatsentyuk) has just returned home after a long stint working abroad. Locals know him best by the nickname Pamfir, which was garnered in a youth of smuggling - although that is all theoretically in the past now thanks to a promise he made to his wife Olena (Solomiia Kyrylova). The setting may be rural but the rules here are far from pastoral. Despite the earthy warmth of the general colour scheme, mist swirls about the place and there’s a strong undercurrent of violence, even in the film’s moments of humour.

Pamfir’s son Nazar (Stanislav Potiak) is now a teenager and idolises his dad to such a degree that he hatches a plan he thinks will stop him leaving the family home again. Unfortunately, things escalate much further than he imagines and Leonid finds himself on the hook with the local church for a large sum of cash. And so, Pamfir joins the long line of cinematic men with chequered pasts who have to do one last job. As he puts it: “I don’t like what I do and I don’t do what I like.”

Although this, and other genre elements feel familiar, Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk elevates them through a strong grip on mood. Pamfir is frequently seen growling, whether it's through pleasure in the bedroom or playfulness with his son, which adds to the film’s edgy feel of danger lurking nearby even before we meet local kingpin Mr Oreste (Petro Chychuk). There’s an increasing sense of the unnatural impinging on the natural, whether it's the way Pamfir pops stimulants to help him fight or the bizarre neon glow that emanates from a diorama of stuffed wild animals at Oreste’s home.

Sukholytkyy-Sobchuk’s story is on the sprawling side in terms of the number of characters, although it adds to the sense of corruption bleeding into every aspect of the community. As Olena’s God-fearing attitude indicates, being pure only puts you in line for more pain.

Malanka is a New Year ritual, celebrated on January 13 according to the Julian calendar, bringing with it ideas of renewal but the suggestion here is that while it might be possible to mask unpleasant elements of toxic masculinity, changing them is a much bigger ask.