Review Dear Beautiful Beloved – A Powerful Message from the Ukrainian Front Line | film

“MMy son, my sun, my beloved child. A grief-stricken mother wipes the face of her son, a soldier lying in a coffin, killed on the front line. Another week, another Ukrainian film about the devastating toll of war. This documentary by director Yuri Rezhinsky follows two evacuation missions in Ukraine: teams of volunteers transport the elderly and vulnerable from their homes to safety away from the front; And the process of returning the remains of dead soldiers to their families. It is a haunting film, haunted by death, but also tender and poignant, with a powerful message that compassion, love and resilience can be acts of defiance.

The film begins with elderly people being evacuated from their homes to a treatment center in a former hospital (where a volunteer addresses them as “fellow grannies”). From here they will be moved to more sustainable housing. As she prepares to leave her apartment, one woman worries: “My hair is a mess.” An English volunteer named Elizabeth is kind, smiling and patient as she holds her hand in hers. Rechinsky also depicts women and children boarding trains leaving Ukraine, wheelie bags, babies huddled in their warmest clothes.

The second focus of the film is the work done by forensic and military teams to recover and identify the remains of soldiers killed in battle. A man built like a wardrobe named Oleksandr (the credits give his nickname as “The Bulldozer”) undertakes the difficult, exhausting, and risky task of returning bodies across the country to their families. His white truck has soldiers with angel wings painted on the side. As he passes through a city, people line the streets, kneeling on the sidewalk to honor the dead. It’s very sad.