Brief
Skip to main content Skip to navigation Close dialogue 1 / 1 Next image Previous image Toggle caption Print subscriptions Search jobs Sign in Eur Europe edition UK edition US edition Australia edition International edition The Guardian - Back to home The Guardian News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle Show more Hide expanded menu News View all News World news UK news Climate crisis Ukraine Environment Science Global development Football Tech Business Obituaries Opinion View all Opinion The Guardian view Columnists Cartoons Opinion videos Letters Sport View all Sport Football Cricket Rugby union Tennis Cycling F1 Golf US sports Culture View all Culture Books Music TV & radio Art & design Film Games Classical Stage Lifestyle View all Lifestyle Fashion Food Recipes Love & sex Health & fitness Home & garden Women Men Family Travel Money Search input google-search Search Support us Print subscriptions Search jobs Holidays Digital Archive Guardian Licensing Live events About Us The Guardian app Video Podcasts Pictures Newsletters Today's paper Inside the Guardian Guardian Weekly Crosswords Wordiply Corrections Tips Search input google-search Search Search jobs Holidays Digital Archive Guardian Licensing Live events About Us Books Music TV & radio Art & design Film Games Classical Stage Harmful influences … a scene from Memory. View image in fullscreen Harmful influences … a scene from Memory. Film Review Memory review – a cinematic exorcism through a child’s eye view of terror in the Chechen wars Vladlena Sandu’s extraordinary portrait of an upbringing during the 1990s Chechen wars blends surreal tableaux with flights of imagination to lament a collective loss of innocence Phuong Le Mon 3 Aug 2026 10.00 CEST Last modified on Mon 3 Aug 2026 10.19 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google B orn in Feodosia, a Ukrainian city on the Crimean coast, Vladlena Sandu moved to her mother’s home town of Grozny in Chechnya when she was only six. Blue skies and cerulean waters dominated her childhood, but as the Chechen–Russian conflicts erupted into full-blown wars during the 1990s, she experienced terror, bloodshed, and death. Sandu pours these traumatic memories into her feature debut, a hybrid documentary portrait that doubles as cinematic exorcism, where the demons of the past are transformed into striking collages and vignettes. Across staged tableaux infused with theatrical flourishes and surreal abstraction, reality is superseded by childlike imagination. Adults are largely absent from the frame, although their harmful influences remain. A giant red cake painted with Lenin’s face conjures the ideological education Sandu received at school, while her grandfather, who would chase her with an axe when he was drunk, is represented as a pair of bloodied hands clasping a quivering baby chick. These images – both childlike and mythological – are accompanied by Sandu’s diaristic voiceover. Spoken in present tense, the events of the past acquire a stunning urgency. While the early section of the film blooms with a similar vibrancy to Sergei Parajanov ’s melancholic reveries, Sandu’s teenage years take on the tones of Andrei Tarkovsky ’s metaphysical contemplations. The childlike capacity of a young girl to navigate her painful circumstances with a sense of wonder has hardened into jaded acceptance. Sandu frames this loss of innocence not merely as an individual tragedy, but a collective one also. We find out that her grandfather, too, had been a child of political oppression; his father, Sandu’s great-grandfather, was sent by the Stalin regime to the gulag. The film’s final images align the gaze of her younger self with those of countless other children, a provocative juxtaposition that foregrounds the invisible casualties of war. Memory is at the ICA, London from 6 August. Explore more on these topics Film Documentary films Chechnya Children Russia reviews Share Reuse this content Most viewed Most viewed Books Music TV & radio Art & design Film Games Classical Stage News Opinion Sport Culture Lifestyle Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning Sign up for our email About us Help Complaints & corrections Contact us Tip us off SecureDrop Privacy policy Cookie policy Tax strategy Terms & conditions All topics All writers Newsletters Digital newspaper archive Bluesky Facebook Instagram LinkedIn Threads TikTok YouTube Advertise with us Search UK jobs Tips Accessibility settings Work with us Back to top © 2026 Guardian News & Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved. (dcr)
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