“It’s like a movie.” “It’s on the verge of both horror and romance.”
This brief conversation, which we hear early on in Juan Camilo Cruz and Artem Ryzhykov’s grim documentary “A Simple Soldier,” is one of its most revealing. Referring to the first glimpses of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which began in 2022 and has now carried on for three years with little end in sight despite hundreds of thousands of casualties, it’s one that sees two people attempting to make sense of something terrifying playing out right in front of their eyes in a way that is familiar. People want to make meaning out of the maddening, with cinema itself as a way to do so.
However, what “A Simple Soldier” eventually hits upon is how there is no way to fold the horrors of war into something so easily classifiable. Real life is not the movies.
This is despite Ryzhykov initially beginning work on this project as a filmmaker first and foremost. In these opening sequences, we learn of his life and hear him speak in his own words about what it is that drew him to wanting to observe what is going on. It’s about documenting, capturing the conflict that has now consumed the world from the ground. He’s not the first to do so, with “20 Days in Mariupol” being the most memorable in how it placed us right in the midst of the conflict alongside a group of journalists.
However, what is different with “A Simple Soldier” is Ryzhykov is himself Ukrainian and also desires to be more directly involved in the fighting. As he goes from observing the war to becoming a fighter in it, the focus of the film increasingly begins to shift. The project and its purpose for him become more complicated.
Quickly, “A Simple Soldier” begins to confront how fraught this can be. When Ryzhykov is filming, he is met with frustration and even anger. “Do you really have to film everything?” Ryzhykov is asked as he watches an injured man being treated. Is there something extractive about turning his lens on this man at this moment? Does his picking up a gun himself mean he too may find himself injured with someone filming him? What value can a documentary like this have when everything is completely falling apart? Is it worth it if bearing witness to brutality means that things can change, the bloodshed can be stopped, and peace can be achieved?
These questions float around in the background of “A Simple Soldier,” but Ryzhykov is most interested in seeing how it is that the war is impacting the people on the ground. We see the violent aftermath in many instances, leaving a lingering sense of death hanging over the film.
Repeatedly, Ryzhykov reflects on how his film is different than the movies, saying how “in the movies, they don’t show you the feeling of an invisible enemy.” Instead, death comes from the unseen, destroying lives in the blink of an eye and leaving the rest of everyone to continue on. “A Simple Soldier,” whether it intends to be about this or not, is as much about how insufficient movies, even the ones most committed to doing so, can be at capturing reality.
We are there in the dirt with Ryzhykov as he jokes about being an award-winning cinematographer who is digging his own grave before wondering aloud what the hell he is doing here. The title itself becomes an oxymoron in that there are no simple soldiers. War is complicated, devastating and something that can only drive us further into violence. “A Simple Soldier” is then a fascinating, fraught exploration of how a filmmaker was changed by what he filmed.
