Vtraffic jam on the highway, a woman frantically runs from car to car to find a ride. She comes from the Ukraine and has to get back to the small Czech town where her son, who was badly injured after an attack, is in the hospital. Who is responsible for that? Who is the victim here? And from what? “Victim”, the debut film by Slovakian director Michal Blaško, who was also his country’s entry for the Oscars this year, deals with these questions.
Single mother Irina (Vita Smachelyuk), a Ukrainian in the Czech countryside, is determined to solve the attack on her 13-year-old son. Igor (Gleb Kuchuk) wakes up in the hospital after the incident and claims to have been beaten up by three strangers. “Were they white?” asks his mother. “No,” Igor replies. However, he cannot remember any other characteristics of the perpetrators. The attack quickly occupies the provincial town, whose residents want to hold three young Roma responsible for the crime.
Irina distrusts the apparent solidarity with her because she senses that various parties want to exploit the case for themselves. The sudden collegiality she experiences after the accident tends to disguise the racist prejudices against the Roma family next door. The longer the film lasts, the narrower the line Irina walks between complicity that promises her social advancement and the truth that would have fatal consequences for her. When new insights into the course of the crime emerge, it seems too late to correct the facts.
“Victim” is a milieu study that focuses on Irina, who cleans, who dreams of her own hairdressing salon and finally wants Czech citizenship after failing the naturalization procedure once before. The film tells of xenophobia, fake news and a woman who is forced to act against her moral compass. A grey, dreary prefabricated housing estate provides the backdrop for the social-realistic drama.
“Victim” does not try to judge Irina’s actions, but rather to accompany her in her growing desperation. Soon after the incident, the media and the city administration get involved, and finally the son’s friends, who appear empathetic and concerned, but turn out to be supporters of a small Nazi group.
The incident is immediately mediated
The fact that the Ukrainian minority in the city is only reluctantly tolerated is shown in a scene in which the management of the home treats a young mother for whom Irina is the interpreter: she should either pay more for the small room or disappear straight away. When Irina takes on the additional costs for the family, she gets a weird look from the staff. The outsider role can also be heard in the German dubbed version: Irina does not speak without an accent, she is no more part of the community than her accused neighbors.
