Film recommendation from the Kyiv Independent: “Luxembourg, Luxembourg” by Antonio Lukich (Patreon)

Hi everyone, I’m Elsa – I’m a news editor at the Kyiv Independent. Now that the days are getting colder and darker, I thought it would be a good idea to recommend a Ukrainian film that made me laugh to cheer up our members (for 90 minutes at least).

“Luxembourg, Luxembourg” is a film by Antonio Lukich, following up on his 2019 feature “My Thoughts are Silent,” another favorite comedy-drama of mine that could take up a whole different email.

The film begins in the small city of Lubny in Poltava Oblast in the 1990s, where two twins, Kolya and Vasya, are growing up. Through their perspective, we learn that their dad is some kind of local gangster, given the occasional glimpse of guns, tattoos, and stashes of cash.

The film then flashes forward two decades, and we meet Kolya and Vasya in Lubny again. Their father is no longer in the picture – he apparently left the family to make money elsewhere – and the twins have grown apart. Kolya lives at home with his mother and barely holds on to his job as a marshrutka (minibus) driver. His hobbies include low-level drug dealing and trying to impress girls with his pimped-up Volvo.

His brother Vasya is the polar opposite – a highly-strung police officer, with a wife and baby to care for. He’s striving to get promoted, something that becomes challenging as Kolya keeps ending up at the police station.

When the brothers hear that their dad is dying in a hospital in Luxembourg, Vasya wants nothing to do with his absent, criminal father. Kolya, however, is determined to leave Lubny to say goodbye to the parent he idolizes – and perhaps, make some money in a country full of millionaires.

While the film is witty, it also tackles the serious topic of a child’s relationship with their parent. “They say parents should be responsible for their kids – but should we, children, be responsible for our parents?” Kolya ponders. Part of the film also illustrates how elderly Ukrainians, whose pensions, mostly earned in Soviet times, are practically worthless, are left to survive on their own when their younger relatives leave to work abroad – a trend that has only been exacerbated by the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia.

The actors are real-life twins, and both of their faces are deeply expressive, conveying their characters’ emotions with a subtle change of expression. Kolya’s scenes benefit from the actor’s great comedic timing and his ability to make his character seem sincere and ridiculous at the same time. Lukich also sets up the framing of shots in such a way that some of the funniest scenes are the ones where very little is said.

I think a good test of comedy in these kinds of films is whether the jokes break through the barriers of subtitles and cultural differences, to connect to the universal absurdity of the human experience. “Luxembourg, Luxembourg” definitely passes this test.