To an inattentive glance, Ukrainian director Eva Dzhyshyashvili’s debut may seem inconsequential, as it focuses on the individual destinies of an elderly couple living in the mountains, at considerable distance from any other human settlement, where they lead an honest life of hard work, cultivating the land and raising their grandchildren. Behind this timeless folk fairy tale façade, though, hides a story which is burningly relevant to the present. The movie sheds light on two crucial issues in the Russian-Ukrainian war. First of all, if its latest outbreak of violence, the Russian large-scale invasion, may have taken Western observers by surprise, the Ukrainian people were never deceived by the illusion of peace. The protagonist Dmytro bears the marks of the Maidan Uprising and the bloody confrontations in the east of the country on his own body: he lost his leg in the fight, which is why his wife, Hannusia, took over the burden of household responsibilities. In their case, being physically isolated from society doesn’t rhyme with being naive or willfully ignorant. One way or another, politics infiltrates all corners of this piece of paradise where they took refuge and even the dialogues between the grandfather and his young nephew are overshadowed by the spectre of war. Secondly, the hard work of the two elderly protagonists transcends the boundaries of the rural tableau and becomes a vibrant premonitory demonstration of the resilience and courage of the Ukrainian people who now amaze the whole world. (Liri Alienor Chapelan)