Gar O'Rourke joins the likes of Frederick Wiseman in a gripping observational documentary that takes a close look at a community trying to relax amid growing anxiety. Although O'Rourke is an Irish director working with much of the Irish funding, his filming took place in Ukraine, a country under threat. But this is not a documentary about war front and center. Rather, it is about what happens outside the war zones in a faded vacation spot.
Looking at him, Kuyalnik Sanatoriumlocated near Odessa in southern Ukraine, could be a power plant, a military base or even a wastewater treatment plant. In fact, there are other treatments that attract ordinary people to this impressive Soviet-era structure: mud baths, massages and all sorts of other wellness treatments are an attribute of this spectacular but dysfunctional establishment.
Denis Melnik photographs the guests of the institution with compassion, but also with honesty, preserving their dignity without distorting reality. The variety of body types and shapes shown here, often described with very little, is a reminder that despite the smooth skin of people deemed admirable on Instagram, most people's bodies and faces have bumps, bumps, folds and wrinkles. Showing it in such a contemplative manner seems radical in an attention economy that has normalized loudness.
Without a narrator to force interpretation, Sanatorium is the opposite of a spoon-fed social-issues doc: it watches, listens, and trusts an audience that also watches, listens, and draws its own conclusions. That doesn't mean it's not characteristic and funny; This. As guests dance at the spa's disco to George Michael's classic “Sloppy Whispers,” viewers may be reminded of Austrian director Ulrich Seidl's witty scene-building, but where Seidl's ruthless performance sometimes crosses the line into mercilessness, the humor here erases no one's humanity. There is always warmth and dignity in the portrayal of the people involved.
There is even a sense of religious ritual in some scenes: when clients are carefully painted with healing mud and wrapped in cloth, it is as if they are witnessing the embalming of saints, an effect emphasized by Denis Kielty's score. When the Renaissance artist Caravaggio first began to attract fame, much of his appeal lay in the fact that while his subjects were conventionally saintly and biblical figures, his models were ordinary people from the streets of Rome, leading to Madonnas with the face of a popular local sex worker, students with the figure of a skinny old man selling fish at the market, or a successful archdeacon bearing a passing resemblance to the owner of the nearest dive bar. It is O'Rourke's faces that are in the foreground, similarly centering everyday life to a hallowed effect. This contrasts nicely with the modest treatment effect that clients themselves report: “Psoriasis no longer gets worse.”
Location is also a major character, with the crumbling building itself providing a vibrant stage for low-key drama. The ambition and pride that was involved in its construction during the heyday of the USSR's power and influence, in contrast to its current state of controlled decline, makes for a poignant monument to Ozymandias: “Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair” – a timely theme as aging men in power around the world try to ensure they are remembered, often with disastrous consequences.
With its values of wit and stoicism, Sanatorium always felt like a shot at the international Oscar race, where it represents Ireland this year. But if the Academy were ever to introduce a more nuanced category, this type of film would take the lead.
