A House Made of Splin­ters – first-look review

A qui­et urgency dic­tates the lives of young­sters resid­ing at the Lysy­chan­sk shel­ter in east­ern Ukraine, which pro­vides tem­po­rary accom­mo­da­tion to neglect­ed chil­dren from splin­tered fam­i­lies. Their stay is lim­it­ed to a max­i­mum of nine months, after which, if their par­ents are unable to take them back, they are moved into an orphan­age, adopt­ed by a rel­a­tive or a fos­ter family. 

Simon Lereng Wilmont’s A House Made of Splin­ters is less about the 2014 con­flict in Ukraine, and more about the invis­i­ble and gru­elling after-effects of war. The voiceover informs us that, ​“every tenth door here hides a bro­ken family”. 

Years of con­flict have pushed par­ents to alco­holism and domes­tic abuse, ren­der­ing them ill-equipped to raise their chil­dren. Splin­ters sees a group of head­strong and immense­ly devot­ed social work­ers cre­at­ing a safe haven and a tem­po­rary yet strong famil­ial bond for chil­dren whose futures are being nego­ti­at­ed by state author­i­ties and court proceedings.

Instead of fol­low­ing an archival path or adopt­ing an inter­view-dri­ven for­mat, Wilmont’s cam­era opts for an obser­va­tion­al mode which unfolds with great patience, soft­ly delin­eat­ing the por­traits of Eva, Ali­na, Sasha and Kolya. Warmth envelops each cor­ner of the shel­ter that’s coloured with small pock­ets of hope, with Wilmont’s exquis­ite cin­e­matog­ra­phy gleam­ing over fawn-coloured walls and lend­ing the inte­ri­ors a remark­ably soft shimmer. 

Rays of sun­light creep in through sheer cur­tains as Ali­na and Eva hide behind it pre­tend­ing to be ghosts, and a colour­ful kalei­do­scop­ic light emanates from a sphere under bed sheets as they forge bonds by shar­ing sto­ries about their bro­ken lives.

There’s an insta­bil­i­ty in the pac­ing which fluc­tu­ates at parts, but this is not to the documentary’s detri­ment. Rather than mak­ing the view­ing expe­ri­ence awk­ward, the episod­ic, splin­tered approach in fol­low­ing each child gives the film a strong nar­ra­tive feel, while apt­ly con­vey­ing the pre­car­i­ous atmos­phere of the shelter. 

Despite its slight­ly manip­u­la­tive ele­ments (a melan­cholic score that at times veers into melo­dra­ma, and a social worker’s voiceover that becomes some­what heavy-hand­ed) the line is tread with care. Wilmont’s young sub­jects have a bril­liant rap­port with the cam­era that nev­er feels feigned. There’s a pal­pa­ble famil­iar­i­ty and trust between the chil­dren and the crew, which is thor­ough­ly reflect­ed; nev­er do we feel that they’re being patro­n­ised, or that their vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty and pre­car­i­ty are being overstated.

In the wake of the recent inva­sion, the chil­dren have been evac­u­at­ed away from the front­line and towards a safer area, and while heal­ing is an unsta­ble and non­lin­ear process, it would be reduc­tive to agree with the voiceover’s asser­tion that, ​“hope dies last”. 

The voiceover also refers to instances where chil­dren who were resid­ing at the shel­ter in the past, have grown up and turned into their par­ents, con­demn­ing their own chil­dren to the same cir­cum­stances. Refer­ring to these cycles of unbro­ken inter­gen­er­a­tional pain, this con­clu­sion is unfor­tu­nate­ly pre­sent­ed as an even­tu­al­i­ty rather than a pos­si­bil­i­ty, yet the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion in Ukraine only com­pli­cates this predicament.

To be immersed in the cin­e­mat­ic expe­ri­ence of Splin­ters and sus­tain a lev­el of objec­tiv­i­ty and detach­ment, is an impos­si­ble task. I have nev­er felt the imme­di­ate effects of dis­place­ment, but I’m no stranger to its inter­gen­er­a­tional man­i­fes­ta­tions. Since my grand­par­ents and their chil­dren – my moth­er and uncle – fled their home­town Varosha dur­ing the 1974 Turk­ish inva­sion of Cyprus, my moth­er sel­dom engages with cin­e­ma, lit­er­a­ture or the­atre that explic­it­ly deals with war and dis­place­ment, sus­tain­ing her resilience and self-preservation. 

Yet the mem­o­ry of her trau­ma is bound to oscil­late. The air raid sirens that sound across the island year after year, mark­ing the anniver­sary of the mil­i­tary coup and the sub­se­quent inva­sion, always chip­ping at her seem­ing­ly bul­let­proof exte­ri­or. With the inva­sion of Ukraine being thrust to the fore­front of media cov­er­age on cur­rent affairs (the country’s Euro­pean sta­tus lend­ing it more atten­tion than ongo­ing con­flicts in Cyprus’ neigh­bour­ing Mid­dle East­ern coun­tries), mem­o­ries of that sum­mer after­noon when she left her child­hood home nev­er to return, haunt her daily.

Each con­flict comes with its own geopo­lit­i­cal speci­fici­ties of course, but if one thing remains uni­ver­sal, it’s not that ​“hope dies last”. Rather, the wound of war and dis­place­ment is endur­ing and per­ma­nent for chil­dren, whose for­ma­tive years are con­demned to the obscured con­tours of depri­va­tion. The futures of the Lysy­chan­sk chil­dren are as pre­car­i­ous as ever, and Wilmont’s film depicts that ugly and com­pli­cat­ed real­i­ty with incred­i­ble hon­esty, authen­tic­i­ty and care.

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