Review by The Guardian ***** Close-up of history in the making

Loznitsa’s remarkable documentary “Maidan” offers an eye-witness account of the protests in Kiev’s Independence Square which led to the departure of President Yanukovych. Over three months Loznitsa and his minimal crew filmed with fixed cameras placed among the crowds. The film follows the progress of the revolution: from peaceful rallies, half a million strong, in the Maidan square, to the bloody street battles between the protesters and riot police. MAIDAN is a portrait of an awakening nation, rediscovering its identity.

Loznitsa’s documentary, which came out in 2014 and was largely acclaimed by the critique — it was nominated at the 67th Cannes Festival —, clearly still attracts a lot of attention and stirs debates.

In fact, Maidan displays a real «parti–pris» with its ultra–minimalist style: dialogues are reduced to the bare minimum, no comments are made. Loznitsa made the choice to go against the conventions of a traditional documentary film by not including a voiceover narration or interviews.

Only a few times during the movie, a few lines of explanation appear on the screen to give a minimum of context, and to describe, in no more than a few words, the different stages of the conflict.

The viewer is absolutely left to his own reflections. No historian, sociologist, or any other sort of specialist, is there to give guidelines as to what one should make of these images.

Ukraine-Netherlands 2014
Directed by Sergei Loznitsa
133 min
With English subtitles

More Info http://www.maidanfilm.co.uk/