Svitlana Lishchynska is the director of A Bit of a Stranger, and she is also Stefie’s grandmother, the host of the birthday party. The movie focuses on these women’s sense of nationality, their Ukrainian and Russian identity, and the way history formed and influenced them. They are from Mariupol, their native language is Russian. For some, Mariupol means the Soviet-Union, for others, it means Ukraine. The great-grandmother, Valentyna grew up in post-war Soviet-Union, where, according to her, there was no time for love, because they were busy outperforming the iron and steel industry of the USA. It wasn’t a place for individualism.
Valentyna raised Svitlana, born in 1970, in this spirit. She forced her left-handed daughter to use her right hand, because she had to be like everyone else. Svitlana is freer than her mother, willing to rebel. In the middle of the 90s, she left her family and went to Kyiv, where Ukrainian is spoken instead of Russian. She did this to escape her childhood trauma, but she always intended to go back home. Svitlana’s daughter, Sasha, was born around the collapse of the Soviet-Union. She does not see Russia as an occupier, but as a neighbor to be on good terms with. She refuses to believe that there will be war. Why would there be?
Their different reactions to the invasion mirror these disparate attitudes. Even though Valentyna is worried for the family, the war does not seem to scare her that much. She grew up under Russian influence, so it’s not an unfamiliar world for her. Svitlana, however, is panicking, constantly doom-scrolling on the Internet. She is more familiar with freedom, she was allowed to experience it, she knows what’s at stake. Sasha is bewildered, and can’t process what’s happening around her. She has panic attacks. She does not get it. She considers herself Russian, not Ukrainian. Even when she flees Mariupol and goes to Kyiv, she refuses to speak Ukrainian, because her mother-tongue is Russian. Pretending to be Ukrainian would be a lie, she claims. She’s the one who is supposed to be liberated by the “special military operation”, yet she’s the one who loses her home and sense of safety.
Stefie is too young to understand the political situation around her. Sasha and Stefie find refuge in the United Kingdom, which raises questions about Stefie’s future national identity. Is she going to be more British than Ukrainian? How will she relate herself to the Russians when she grows up? Will she even remember her time in Mariupol?
Lishchynska’s film spends most of its runtime exploring and analyzing the women’s reaction towards crisis. Lishchynska does not let her presence overtake the film, rather she is willing to step back to observe her family, giving them time and space to express themselves, to have conversations with each other. Lishchynska allows spectators to be in the room with the women, listening to what they have to discuss or get off their chests.
A Bit of a Stranger constantly operates with the juxtaposition of various timelines. We can see the Russian military parading around in occupied parts of Mariupol on Victory Day in 2022. Then there’s a cut to a home video of young Sasha roller-skating on the streets of the same city in the early 2000s. The contrast is eerie and gut-wrenching: the first scene radiates the power of the aggressor, while the second is full of peace and innocence. In another scene, Svitlana, Sasha and Valentyna are celebrating the New Year of 2007, singing the Russian national anthem, while they watch Putin’s speech on TV. They are happy, the sight of Putin does not anger or annoy them at all. In the present, they keep calling him names whenever they think of the Russian president.
It is hard to determine which of the women is the movie’s main protagonist. In a Q&A session after the screening, Lishchynska said it was her daughter, Sasha, since Sasha is the stranger wherever she goes. She’s too Ukrainian to be Russian, she’s too Russian to be Ukrainian. She’s too Russian-Ukrainian to be British. What do these labels even mean? What does it take to be one or the other? This conflict is familiar to the other protagonists as well, but it is Sasha who becomes the embodiment of the movie’s main theme, since she’s the one who most vividly represents the crisis of national identity, amplified by such a serious cultural and territorial dispute. Her story arc in the UK is also the one that demonstrates that the land around us can affect our sense of national identity. In Mariupol, we see her celebrating by singing the Russian national anthem. In the UK, she celebrates Christmas by singing carols in English.
At one point, Svitlana asks Valentyna if she considers herself Russian or Ukrainian. Valentyna takes her time in answering, only to reveal that she considers herself a human being first and foremost. Yet she seems to be depressed after she leaves the country. She is not home anymore. She, too, becomes a bit of a stranger. The city of Mariupol is captured and annexed, the apartment building the family lived in is destroyed. The city as they knew and loved it is no more. But what will happen to their national identity if they’re not living in their native land? Which is more important to preserve, land or identity? Lishchynska offers more questions than answers, but the film is sure to make one thing clear: there is no freedom without love, and there is no love without freedom, the sentiment at the core of her own patriotism.
Ádám Fónai
