To The Victory!

Directed by Valentyn Vasyanovych, To The Victory! follows Vasyanovych’s Roman as he attempts to complete his latest movie while also dealing with several personal issues. Filmmaker Vasyanovych, armed with his own screenplay, delivers a progressively tedious (and downright interminable) disaster that squanders a promising setup and decent opening scene, as the picture, which runs a punishing 105 minutes, boasts an episodic structure that is, for the most part, rife with pointless (and endless) digressions and subplots – with the arms-length atmosphere perpetuated by an often agonizingly deliberate pace and Vasyanovych’s ongoing emphasis on regrettable, ill-fated instances of comedy. And while the movie contains (and benefits from) a very small handful of effective moments (eg Roman confronts his estranged wife at a film festival), To The Victory! is dominated by meandering and utterly irrelevant interludes (eg Roman makes repairs with his son, Roman tries to convince his father to let him drive, etc, etc) that cumulatively confirm its place as an aggressively self-indulgent mess – with this vibe certainly enhanced by the laughably aimless closing scene and comically abrupt final shot.

1/2* out of ****