The newest film by Elwira Niewiera and Piotr Rosołowski draws inspiration from Shakespeare’s longest and most famous play – The Tragedy of Hamlet. Similar to the English drama, the six protagonists of The Hamlet Syndrome (2022), meet on stage to contemplate life and death to the memory of the Donbas War and its effects on contemporary Ukraine, few months prior to Russia’s full-scale invasion.
Niewiera and Rosołowski – the established Polish directors, since years based in Berlin – known among others for The Prince and the Dybbuk (2017) and The Domino Effects (2014), once again challenge the form of documentary making. This time they confront the viewer with a thoroughly researched and deeply engaged film, shot in Ukraine, which shows how theatre and film can assist in dealing with traumatic events.
As shared by the directors, the process of working on the film began long before its world premiere at Locarno Film Festival in 2022. Back in 2018 the directors duo, felt the need to inform the European audience about the ongoing (since 2014) war in Eastern Ukraine and its effects on the Ukrainian society. Motivated by the general lack of international media coverage of the conflict, Niewiera and Rosołowski traveled to Ukraine to draw an honest and personal portrait of war and its effects on the human psyche.
Growing up in communist Poland, where memory and traumas of the Second World War have been passing on through generations, both directors felt the urge to speak about the ongoing war, thus informing the world about Russia’s imperialist threat. As fate would have it, the long process of working on the film got brutally interrupted by full scale invasion on Ukraine in February 2022. Without changing much of the footage shot ahead of the events, The Hamlet Syndrome became a piece about the current armed conflict. Sadly enough, the experiences shared by its protagonists might today be applied to so many others currently fighting for the freedom of their home.
What makes The Hamlet Syndrome so unique is the format of the film. In order to draw a complex and layered portrait of the Ukrainian society, the directors duo came up with the idea of working with documentary theatre. For collaboration they invited a Ukrainian theatre maker, Roza Sarkisian known for her use of pre-existing documentary material as source to reflect, among others on collective memory, national identity, political manipulation, non-normativity and social oppression. In the end, the film documents the making process of the theatre play, where five young people with different socio-economic backgrounds, re-enact their personas and thus reflect on their lives and identities shaped by the ongoing war.
Like Hamlet, all characters invited to take part in the play: Yaroslav, Kateryna, Rodion, Oksana and Roman also face great existential dilemmas. “To live or not to live,” is Yaroslav’s twist on “to be or not to be”, as he reflects on his physical—and almost fatal—involvement in the battle in the Donbas region in 2014. Kateryna and Roman also fought in that war, while Oksana and Rodion fight as feminists and members of the LGBTQ+ community in a conservative society.
During the process of working on the play, each of the protagonists gets an opportunity to express some of the deepest and darkest thoughts and memories. At the same time all of them manage to notice the other and open themselves for different ways of thinking and living – something that perhaps would not be possible, off the stage and within their everyday environments.
The scenes from the theatre play rehearsals are intertwined with personal stories of each of the young Ukrainians. We see them speak to their families and close relatives about the complex feelings related to their experiences of either fighting in the Donbas War or struggling with various social norms and structures. What becomes prominent is the generational gap between the young people and their parents, especially in speaking about and expressing feelings.
The process of working on the theatre piece was an intense, emotional journey both for the entire film crew, the dramaturg and for the five protagonists. However, as reassured by the directors in one of the interviews, all participants had gone through a long process of psychotherapy before taking part in the film. That allowed them to work on the piece without the fear of getting into a possibly triggering situation without the tools of getting out of it. When asked about the choice of documenting a play, instead of making a documentary about the five people, director Elwira Niewiera admitted that, in her opinion, only though art and theatre it was possible to genuinely speak about the deepest emotions and layered war traumas, both collective and individual.
The Hamlet Syndrome entered the German market at the beginning of 2023 and is currently available to watch in various arthouse cinemas all across the country. Both directors continue being politically engaged, especially after Russia’s full scale invasion. After the screenings, they engage with the audience, inform about the current situation in Ukraine, collect funds for humanitarian help and use the film in order to raise awareness and motivate political participation.
