Intercepted

A bleak and searing wiretap into Putin’s warping effect on his people and the psychology of power.

By anonymizing both the callers and the places featured in the documentary, “Intercepted” becomes a sobering portrait of the many millions of lives interrupted by this war.

“Intercepted” is yet another crucial eyewitness document of the Russia-Ukraine war, one that makes the personal stakes painfully vivid.

In little more than an hour and a half, it provides an education into the experience of the continuing atrocity with which only the most detailed journalistic accounts can compete.

The film’s most effective material comes in its analysis of how the military state’s permission structures for inhumanity traumatize citizens in order to harden them and focus their hatred.

At just over 90 minutes, the documentary casts a spell through its minimalist construction, constantly inviting the viewer to scrutinise the phone calls while taking in the aftermath of the destruction meted out by Russian forces.

...creates a unique view of the war in Ukraine by juxtaposing audio from the intercepted phone calls of Russian soldiers serving in Ukraine with shots of the war-ravaged country.

Harrowing, unpredictable, and haunting.

"Intercepted" posits a twinned dialectic between sound and image and between invader and invaded.

“Sides“ aside — they matter, but independently of the film’s existence — “Intercepted“ begs to be seen for how harrowing it is, not as a form of entertainment. Not all movies can achieve that distinction, and frankly, not all of them should.