Within the grasslands of Southern Ukraine, between Crimea and mainland Ukraine, a pure historical past researcher named Yura (Dmytro Bahnenko) is hoping to trace down and {photograph} a groundhog. If he succeeds, the land may be protected as a European reserve. This apparently easy premise — the kernel on the outset of “The Editorial Workplace” — can’t start to trace on the rugged tapestry of thematic and topical threads that Roman Bondarchuk’s second narrative function proceeds to weave collectively, the distinctive product of each the director’s imaginative and prescient and ambition, and likewise of the circumstances underneath which it gestated.

Set and shot simply earlier than the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and accomplished in the course of the conflict, the movie closes with a dedication to editor Viktor Onysko, who misplaced his life within the battle throughout a fight mission (his job was accomplished by Nikon Romanchenko, with contributions from Heike Parplies, who additionally labored with Bondarchuk on his 2018 debut, “Volcano”).

Whereas trying to trace his groundhog goal, Yura catches some arsonists on digital camera as they set a forest hearth. Such a journalistic scoop must be an open-and-shut case: publish, expose, let the authorities take motion. Sadly, life within the Ukrainian provinces doesn’t work that method. As Yura makes an attempt to curiosity numerous individuals within the story, most of them reply with a model of 1 editor’s blunt evaluation that “no-one provides a shit about info,” and a broader image begins to unfold of a civilization collapsing into absurdity.

Corrupt politicians be taught trendy dances and try and go viral. A violent however rich man retains his girlfriend chained by the ankle on a swimming pool float; she is liberated, then returns to him. Yura’s mom, an unemployed 50-year-old tourism supervisor enamored by the get-rich-quick guarantees of an American snake oil salesman, ploughs cash she doesn’t have into cryptocurrency. There are hints of cult exercise culminating in a sequence that wouldn’t look misplaced reduce into an Ari Aster film.

Richard Bach’s “Jonathan Livingstone Seagull” pops up all through as a reference, and it’s straightforward to see how that wildly profitable allegorical novella applies right here: Yura is Jonathan, the seagull that lives to fly, whereas the remainder of his type are petty and small-minded, surviving reasonably than dwelling. Because the paper’s editor (and Yura’s new boss) places it, “Folks gained’t take into consideration the conflict till they see the Moscow tanks rolling in. They need to eat, drink, fuck, pray.” Yura is advised that if he needs to succeed as a journalist, he must prioritize fabricated human-interest tales (ideally with a morbid or sexual aspect) and money-spinners (for instance, fraudulent political puff items hyping the set up of a nonexistent pipeline).

The movie could come as a shock to customers of Western media, accustomed to seeing Ukraine offered in comparatively easy phrases because the plucky underdog resisting the would possibly of Moscow. Bondarchuk has written neither a love letter to Ukraine nor a full-on indictment. Somewhat, it’s maybe finest considered as a sophisticated elegy for the nation’s potential, a surrealist expression of mourning for an endangered worldview based mostly on religion within the worth of reality.

Whereas the occasions depicted within the movie typically have a larger-than-life really feel to them, an impact amplified by their cumulative influence, they don’t seem to be flights of fancy plucked from the ether, however bear believable relationships to previous, current and future occasions, as you would possibly count on from somebody with Bondarchuk’s documentary background. At one level, a political rival is shot and Yura finds himself taking pictures of the bullet wound within the man’s brow, to disprove the official line that he has died of COVID.

The movie’s critique isn’t focused at a selected authorities, however leveled at anybody who collaborates in disrupting the concept that reality issues. Yura’s mom talks at one level about how “individuals of his type are neither good nor dangerous. They’re totally different. Extra sophisticated.” So in a post-truth world, we’re additionally post-morality. However the place George Orwell’s “1984” noticed the Celebration insist that “two plus two equals 5” in the event that they mentioned so, the nightmare right here just isn’t that one single authority dictates reality, however that anyone can accomplish that, leading to a fracturing of actuality into infinite competing narratives. In Yura’s world, if a lie is confirmed to be a lie, firstly, nobody cares, and secondly, there will likely be 1,000 extra lies prepared and ready to drown out the reality. A part of the attraction of conspiracy theories is that they recommend that at the very least any individual is aware of what’s happening. Right here, the villain is entropy.

The selection of a groundhog as a motif feels apt, for the reason that little rodent is primarily related in popular culture with repetition to the purpose of insanity, because of the Invoice Murray comedy. “The Editorial Workplace” captures the sensation of being trapped in an absurdist cycle of corruption, the place there isn’t any risk of a satisfying cathartic second of victory, merely an infinite wrestle by which all sense of that means has been eroded. There may be no heroes in such a battle, Bondarchuk is daring sufficient to recommend, as a result of the battleground itself is such a shape-shifting swamp.