There ’s something a little Martin Parrish about this documentary, filmed in a shabby, run-down health resort near Odessa, Ukraine. It’s not the color palette, which is the pale beige of the Soviet era, but the images of the holidaymakers: elderly men standing against the backdrop of thongs and playing ping-pong in vests; pensioners of both sexes, happy to be at a disco. Like Parr’s photos, the images are funny but not unkind; everyone retains their dignity. The director is Irish filmmaker Gar O’Rourke, who planned the sanatorium before the war but filmed it after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which adds a layer of melancholy to the guests’ quest for health and happiness.
The huge Kuyalnik sanatorium is a time warp with its brutalist architecture and institutional interiors. Back in the freight days, people must have been here by the thousands. Now the place is a little tired: leaks have been painted off the walls, the ceiling. The health treatments have a retro feel too: mud wraps and electro-massage machines. One guest is Natalia, who has brought her lonely 40-ish son Andriy, hoping to find him a wife. This doesn’t look promising, as most of the other guests look old enough to have visited the sanatorium in the day. Mother and son give the film a nice moment, slow dancing together to George Michael’s carefree Whisper in the Disco. Other stories emerge: one woman’s husband was killed on the front lines; a younger guest is a soldier recovering from injuries sustained on the front lines. Another woman is here to help with fertility.
The place is run by the Tony Soprano of hospitality, Dmitry, a great man in a great wardrobe who walks around shouting at the staff. He is under pressure: the Russians are lobbied Odessa and the air raid sirens are going off, the number of visitors has dropped, the guests are glued to their phones, checking the news and apps for surveillance drones and missiles. Their resilience is heroic, and there is a very moving scene nearby, standing at the end during the national anthem; so many faces with tears, each registering a loss or a struggle.
