52 Films by Women Vol 3. 2. FALLING (Director: Marina Stepanska)
Remember the name: Marina Stepanska. Her feature debut as a writer-director, Falling , is a stunning piece of work. It has genuine emotional force and, rarest of all, the ring of truth. It provides a perspective into life in Ukraine from the point of view of the educated middle class who don’t have an obvious way to respond to the Russian-inspired civil war that the country is destined to lose. You can get high. You can run away. Or you can find the will to build something. Its protagonists are Anton (Andriy Seletskiy) and Katya (Dasha Platiy). They meet outside a club. Anton is minding a dog. The scene that sets this up is excluded; as Paul Schrader once said, people would rather be confused than bored. Katya asks for a light. Anton obliges. She then asks him to re-light her cigarette with his own. The gesture brings them close together. You could say that as the tips of their cigarettes touch one another, it feels like a substitute for a kiss. Katya wants to know what Anton is ...