Rock, Paper, Scissors

Bluesky

There’s an urgency about Franz Böhm’s short which mirrors the urgency now felt in relation to the conflict it depicts. Shorts need to seize their moment or risk being forgotten. Ukrainian soldiers now require a swift victory lest geopolitical manoeuvring extinguish their hopes. For teenagers, life is always tinged with urgency, but most don’t find themselves growing up in circumstances like those that faced Ivan.

A real soldier who shared his story with the director and contributed to the script, Ivan was just a boy when the conflict began, with no training to prepare him. When Russian troops approached the bunker where he was hiding out with his father and other survivors, he had to make a desperate decision. It’s that decision that forms the lynchpin of the film, but there’s more going on around it, as Böhm takes the opportunity to explore what life is like for civilians caught in the crossfire. Ivan’s father is a medic, treating the injured, caring for a woman who is giving birth. There are children with them. Will the invading soldiers care?

Played by Oleksandr Rudynskyy, Ivan is caught in that awkward position between child and adult, hyper-aware of his recently increased physical power, serious about taking responsibility, understandably nervy and yet also a little too eager to engage with risk. It’s a stage of life which frightens parents even under normal circumstances, but his father knows that success in his own vital role depends on keeping a calm head, no matter what his son is doing. Furthermore, there are younger children in the bunker who need to be protected, making Ivan all the more aware of duty.

The film was actually shot in England. The anonymity of the landscape adds to the sense of alienation from normal landmarks, physical and metaphorical, that often accompanies war. This may be Ivan’s homeland but it offers him little protection. The Russians may want it, but it seems unlikely that they’ll do much with it. It’s a space shorn of meaning in which individual lives come to mean a good deal more.

The deserving winner of this year’s BAFTA Best short film award, Rock, Paper, Scissors outlines a high stakes game of chance which changes its young hero’s perspective permanently.

Source