‘Every War Leads to Dehumanization’

Sergei Loznitsa’s fictional film begins in a makeup studio, where a group of cantankerous actors are griping about another day on the job. They’re then rushed out onto the streets of eastern Ukraine by a film crew, before arriving at the staged site of a bombing, where they cry for the cameras. The actors are part of a propaganda effort designed to gin up nationalist pride on Russian TV and justify the Kremlin’s support of separatist militias in the Donbass region. It’s a grimly funny scene that’s tinged with despair: Though we viewers knows the action we’re seeing is staged,