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‘Rule of Two Walls’ Review: Ukrainian Artists Find Refuge Amid War in This First-Hand, Hauntingly Meta Documentary

With crew member testimonies and shocking footage of Ukraine's invasion, doc director David Gutnik adds unseen perspectives to the Russian occupation.

With the concise, but still singularly haunting “Rule of Two Walls,” Ukrainian American director David Gutnik has assembled a collection of portraits highlighting the experiences of artists from across the country who’ve found shelter in the city of Lviv, including some of the people behind the making of this very documentary. These voices include Lyana Mytsko, the director of Lviv Municipal Art Center, where artists can develop and exhibit their work, and rapper Stepan Burban (aka Palindrom) whose lyrics, pointedly in Ukrainian after first trying to do it in Russian, speak of aspirations cut short by the violence. But to employ uber conventional talking-head interviews in a piece about the challenging undertaking of art amid chaos would have felt too aesthetically inert to match the determined energy brimming from the subjects.

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