While the juxtaposition of the quotidian with the horrible adds some bite, it’s not enough to overcome the general aura of inescapable bleakness.

| Jun 28, 2022

In a time when the most banal information is up for debate, this fake documentary reads as much too real.

| Jun 14, 2022

The unifying theme of the disparate stories that make up Donbass is the mundane, often terrifying absurdity of everyday life in a war zone.

| May 5, 2022

It's interesting as a reflection of what's going on now, but I must say it's also hard [to understand] without more cultural context.

| Apr 19, 2022

In the way that The Wire unpacked something vital about the layered mess of American cities, Donbass digs with the grimmest of grins into a conflict that has been going on a long time.

| Apr 15, 2022

Each of these scenes, which feature long takes that make them appear to be unfolding in real time, raises our expectations of the possibility of justice, yet that fails to occur.

| Original Score: 4.5/5 | Apr 12, 2022

Some moviegoers, seeking insights on Russias ongoing assault on Ukraine, might enjoy this sort of thing while waiting for real-life emotional catharsis. Good luck to them.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Apr 8, 2022

Were Donbass a documentary, like much of Loznitsas other work, then I might feel comfortable outright panning it, because then its primary job would be to explain this conflict to me. Instead, the primary job of this film is to lampoon it.

| Apr 8, 2022

Billed as a satirical black comedy, the fear, hatred and degradation of the inhabitants of this region is prescient of what the entire country of Ukraine is currently experiencing.

| Apr 8, 2022

It is impossible --- while watching Loznitsas film --- not to think about Putins current assault on the innocent people of Ukraine.

| Apr 8, 2022

You might guess that Loznitsa will reveal that everything so far has been faked, but no. The situations he presents are all too realistic and harrowing, as the fate of the people in the trailer makes clear.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Apr 7, 2022

The movie’s bitter achievement is in its granular, ground-level concreteness. It’s horrific, impossible, extreme — and also understated.

| Apr 7, 2022

Bold, haunting and terrifying, but tonally uneven and occasionally repetitive. As searing and provocative as 1984.

| Apr 5, 2022

The collisions between the grave and the comic are crucial to the films vision of a society cracking under the weight of its inconsistencies.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Apr 2, 2022

A comedy in the sense that the absurdist plays of Eugene Ionesco are comedies.

| Original Score: B | Mar 30, 2022

Like many right-wing artistic figures from the region, [Loznitsa] thoroughly and unquestioningly identifies Stalinism and its crimes with socialism.

| Feb 14, 2021

There's no other antiwar film quite like "Donbass," Ukrainian filmmaker Sergei Loznitsa's brutally matter-of-fact, cynically comic string of vignettes depicting social destabilization in the titular war-ravaged region of eastern Ukraine.

| Nov 20, 2020

What may surprise is how relatable the film is to our own situation, with its subplots of conspiracy, "anti-fascists," fake news, event actors and utterly malleable conceptions of reality.

| Original Score: B-plus | Nov 18, 2020

There's a clear argument in Donbass about the corrupting power of misinformation and propaganda that could not be more timely.

| Original Score: 3/5 | Aug 15, 2020

Although at times the characters only serve to balance the exposition, it's still a devastating film about a morally run over society. [Full review in Spanish]

| Original Score: 7/10 | Jul 23, 2020