- Director
- Evgeny Afineevsky
- Rating
- TV-MA (United States)
- Running Time
- 114 minutes
- Release Date
- n/a
Overall Score
Rating Summary
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Making a documentary about an event that is still ongoing can be a tricky road to navigate. Without wanting to feel exploitative for the purpose of clout or for a successful documentary, one must be careful with how they frame the events. On the other end of the spectrum, documentaries that come out too soon can also risk feeling unfinished, as the events are ongoing, there is no conclusion. Even though in the moment, as the conflict or event is continuing, audiences can look to the news for the rest of the story, years down the line, if the event has concluded, the documentary might seem rushed and incomplete.
So thus, the documentary Freedom on Fire: Ukraine’s Fight for Freedom has big shoes to fill. Premiering at this year’s Venice International Film Festival, it was rushed in an attempt to have it prepared in time for the festival. Depicting the ongoing crisis in Ukraine in their war with Russia, Freedom on Fire tries to carefully balance depicting an ongoing crisis. The film delivers a fairly basic overview about the situation in Ukraine and its presentation that is almost akin to a long news segment which in the end, holds it back from being unique and standout from other documentaries.
The documentary has no underlying goal other than to display to the world what is happening to innocent people and that is in part its downfall. By being so broadly focused, its lack of focus begins to show as the runtime continues and the jumble of stories all sort of blend together. There doesn’t feel as if there is any depth to what is being shown with the presentation being so surface level. Never would one want to diminish such work as this, it is still very vitally important and these criticisms don’t stop the message from being such. However, a more in-depth focus on less subjects would have allowed for a deeper connection with the audience and given them a story to follow throughout the film.
Despite these setbacks, it is still successful in conveying its message to the viewer and leaving an impact on through the sheer power of the images they are seeing (the focus on children throughout the documentary definitely helps and gives perspective on who’s being affected). Even though the presentation of Freedom on Fire leaves much to be desired, that does not make the message any less important. While it is still an effective documentary, it might also be one that is likely to be forgotten in a couple years time.
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