Written by Andreas Babiolakis

We’re covering the Academy Award nominees that we haven’t reviewed yet.

Amidst all of the expectations surrounding 2022’s most beloved documentaries, there was one film that quietly worked its way to the Best Documentary Feature Film category at this year’s Academy Awards (perhaps with a bit of help from the exposure of the BBC couldn’t hurt). That film is A House Made of Splinters: Simon Lereng Vilmont’s vérité answer to the repercussions of Russia’s recent war on the Ukraine. All that happens is that we are planted in an orphanage that houses children that are being protected during this crisis. That’s it. All that transpires in front of us happens organically with what feels like very little encouragement from Vilmont and the documentary crew here. I feel like they focused their efforts on making A House Made of Splinters look and sound nice, and it sure does. It may sound silly — saying that a documentary having better aesthetics may help its message come across better — but it can be true when you’re watching a film like this on television because it just happens to be on; there’s a reason why it squeaked in as the final documentary nominee (because it was difficult to ignore for multiple reasons).

Pleasant cinematography aside (which does make the orphanage feel a bit more like a warm, safe space for these kids of varying ages), A House Made of Splinters is quite a difficult watch given its subject matter. While I’m sure the initial intention was to just observe what is going on in this orphanage, life takes the wheel and steers us in quite a few uncomfortable directions. We see kids behaving in different ways, including unruly as a means of acting out due to the pent up feelings that have been accumulated. This places us in a weird spot: do we identify with the child lashing out and causing issues, or do we defend the practices of the adults that are trying to get them in line? Do we even feel like we should take sides? Sometimes, a good documentary doesn’t convey a specific message: it allows us to extract our own from its footage. All we need to do is see what is going on to determine our own bigger picture here.

A House Made of Splinters is done before it even begins, with the ripple effects of the goings-on inside of the orphanage being felt throughout the visual essay. If anything, this dialled-back approach allows a louder conversation to take place. Here’s a generation of youths that are being ripped from their loved ones, placed in danger, and prevented from leading normal lives. Here’s an orphanage that tries to provide a better life for them. The bigger picture is that help can only do so much in a crisis of this magnitude, but at least it is there to make an impact of any sort in the lives of those that need it. A House Made of Splinters is titled appropriately: this is a domicile for those that need it, and it is pieced together by tragedy. It won’t be a perfect solution, but it’s at least something. For what it is worth, this documentary is incredibly insightful without ever feeling the need that it should try to be.

Andreas Babiolakis has a Masters degree in Film and Photography Preservation and Collections Management from Toronto Metropolitan University, as well as a Bachelors degree in Cinema Studies from York University. His favourite times of year are the Criterion Collection flash sales and the annual Toronto International Film Festival.