TIFF 2024: Impressive Solo Ukrainian Sci-Fi Film ‘U Are the Universe’
by Alex Billington
September 11, 2024
There’s a Ukrainian sci-fi film floating around in the 2024 Toronto Film Festival line-up that is worthy of everyone’s attention, especially sci-fi fans. U Are the Universe is the title of a 101 minute indie sci-fi film written and directed by Ukrainian filmmaker Pavlo Ostrikov – his feature directorial debut after a few short films and TV series previously. Even more remarkable is that this feature film was entirely written and shot in Ukraine during the ongoing war that started when Russia invaded in 2022. Specifics as to how and where they filmed and how they pulled it off aren’t yet available, but all that matters is they made a damn good sci-fi film in the middle of the hell of war in Ukraine. It’s obviously a very minimal production – there’s only one actor starring in the film, it’s both written & directed by Ostrikov, along with a small team of producers and filmmakers behind-the-scenes. The set design, the sci-fi concept, the VFX, everything about this little film is impressive regardless of where or how or when it was made. This is damn good filmmaking no matter what.
U Are the Universe stars Volodymyr Kravchuk as Andriy, a “space trucker” taking radioactive waste from Earth to a distant moon in our solar system. His contract is to take the cargo, fly the ship a few years away, dump it, and fly back another few years. On his way out, while all alone on this spaceship, Earth suddenly explodes. He’s now the last human being alive in the universe… He barely survives the pieces of the planet flying by. Now what? This is an intriguing concept for a one-man sci-fi film. It’s not particularly new, we’ve seen this “last one left” concept before in plenty of other sci-fi films (even this year there’s also Spaceman). What sets it apart is the darkness and loneliness it deals when wrestling with the question of how to stay hopeful and motivated during the most hopeless of times. As with most of these stories, it seems he might not be alone after all, as he hears the voice of a woman on his radio. This concept is fascinating for half of the film, though it gets a bit muddled and illogical in the second half once he has fully lost his mind. Even though it’s just over 100 mins long, it feels like this concept is stretched too thin despite starting out clever. How will Andriy live on? It’s not a wacky comedy, nor is it super depressing, it drifts somewhere inbetween.
The most impressive aspect of U Are the Universe is the production design – the spaceship set is distinct and feels fully lived-in. There’s a spaceship computer called Maxim (voiced by Leonid Popadko) that acts like the computer in 2001. Though it’s actually much closer in concept to GERTY in Moon than HAL from 2001. Even the way this robot is built practically & how it moves into the set attached to an arm that goes around the spaceship ring is fascinating. The fact that they pulled off this level of quality on a tiny indie sci-fi film is astonishing. Kravchuk’s performance is serviceable enough, he’s mostly likeable & watchable. The narrative is more philosophical than existential, with a focus on the melancholy of why is he going on when there’s no one else out there… Alas this is too big of an idea for a small film like this to grapple with properly. And it spins out of control with the subplot that begins in the second half. Anyone can see where it’s headed by the end. But did I enjoy the journey anyway? I did. And I appreciate that this script was written in the midst of the war in Ukraine, as an intriguing look into the mind of a man trying to find the will to live on in darkness.
Alex’s TIFF 2024 Rating: 7 out of 10
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