The backdrop might well be the hard streets of Ukraine, but the themes of Outside are universal ones – the story of a young man growing up on the streets, lost within an uncaring system and struggling to break free from a cycle of petty criminality and rebellion…a lost soul for sure, but also one that director Olha Zhurba has come to worry about and care for.
Zhurba’s film follows a period of five tough years in the life of Roma, a young Ukrainian given up by his mother; joining the Maidan riots as a 13 year-old; spending time in care and eventually trying to forge a life as an adult in a system that offers little support let alone compassion.
The opening, rather self-aware, scenes sees an energetic and ebullient younger Roma running through a field of yellow canola crop, staring up at a beautiful blue sky. A nod to the Ukrainian flag perhaps, but it soon cuts to an 18 year-old Roma, surly and moodily walking along a gloomy and dank road, occasionally checking behind him and apparently worried about being spotted.
The film cuts again to the Maidan riots against the government, with the young Roma sporting home-made armour and throwing rocks at the barricades along with other protesters. The film’s production notes suggest he was a “poster boy of the Ukrainian revolution” – and perhaps Zhurba initially saw him as such – but as the story develops it seem the adult protestors saw him as more of an irritant who used their base just to eat and sleep in.
The truth is somewhere in the middle. Clearly he was a youngster in search of a ‘home.’ As he says: “Why did I run away from the Maidan riots? I’ll tell you why – I had to hide somewhere…I didn’t want to end up in the orphanage.”
But he did, and the film picks up on him again as an 18 year-old who has to leave the facility, ending up eventually staying with his older brother Kolia, a tough-talking man living in Yahotyn, who has spent time in prison. There is a period of grace for Roma – he is seen kissing and embracing the smitten Sonia and tries to get help from a ninth grader for geometry tests, but the film uses CCTV footage of the Yahotyn streets at night to make it clear he is heading towards petty crime.
At one point he was asked if he ever thinks about his mother. “Like hell” he replies. But half way through, the film cuts back to the 13 year-old Roma walking the streets looking for her. He eventually finds her but she seems to want little to do with him, adding that someone wants to adopt her two daughters. In footage years later he meets the American woman who has adopted the two girls Liana and Diana, and who talks enthusiastically about their life in America, sadly oblivious to the life that Roma has.
Footage of Roma is interspersed with audio clips of Zhurba talking with him by phone. It is never made explicit, but it is clear he has eventually ended up in jail. As he tells her about the pressure of boredom during one call: “Sometimes you get so bored you could die.” It is never clear what he has done or how long he will spend behind bars, but genially he suggests a spot on top of a building near-by where Zhurba can see him and perhaps wave.
Outside is a film made with compassion, and it is heart-warming that at least one person, the filmmaker herself, has not given up on this potentially lost soul.
Ukraine-Denmark-Netherlands, 2022, 79mins
Dir/dir: Olha Zhurba
Production: Moon Man, Final Cut for Real, Tangerine Tree
International sales: Deckert Distribution
Producers: Darya Bassel, Viktoria Khomenko
Cinematography: Volodymr Usyk
Editor: Olha Zhurba
Music: Cedric Elisabeth, Yaroslav Tatarchenko
