Achrome

The naïve Maris joins the Wehrmacht during the Nazi occupation of the Baltic states, together with his brother and several others from the village. The barracks are in a monastery, and Maris – whom everyone views as a fool – seems to consider his fate a religious calling. Until his eyes are opened by the soldiers’ misbehaviour, and he takes it upon himself to save a young woman.

For her second feature film, Russian director Maria Ignatenko was inspired by Lithuanian author Rūta Vanagaitė’s book, about the horror of the Holocaust in the Baltic states. The book also discusses the sensitive issue of collaborators. Many citizens who saw the Germans as liberators, after the Soviet occupation of the Baltic states, participated in the mass murder of Jews.

Maria Ignatenko’s poetic, visually stunning film is grim and pitch black, yet also has an icy, calm beauty. Its misty palette, without set contrasts, works as a metaphor for the irrevocably blurred lines between the good and the bad. Achrome is set in a world of shadows, where evil lurks in the forests and stately churches. Can someone surrounded by violence remain innocent? Can humans even be innocent? Probing questions, in a parable of pale errant men, powerless in the face of history.