'Wellness in a warzone' is the elevator pitch of the year - and you really should consider booking a short stay, because Sanatorium is one of the most beguiling films of 2025.
Ireland's entry in the International Feature Film category for next year's Oscars sees documentary director Gar O'Rourke decamp to the sprawling Kuyalnik Sanatorium near the Ukrainian city of Odesa. It's August 2023; the facility was falling apart before the Russian invasion, but Kuyalnik's staff have decided to reopen. They reckon people need the place as much as it needs them.
They're at 18% capacity, but how right they are.
Any film that begins with a manager on a roof shouting down a phone: "Igor, where the f*** are you?!" has set out its stall in style, and it can't be stressed enough to the prospective viewer that Sanatorium is not a downer. It's strange, funny, heart-warming, cathartic in its moments of lived poignancy, and, above all, a tribute to the resilience of a country and its people. The 90 minutes fly.
O'Rourke's view of Kuyalnik is that there's "an intangible aura and magic within this building that we wanted to bottle". Bottle it he has, with a winning mix of people as subjects. There's the perma-hassled boss with a great line in repartee; the young woman who has turned to Kuyalnik because of fertility issues, the mother and son who are as much of a double act as any similar pairing that you know here at home, and many more. Stoics all.
Sanatorium contains one of the strongest big-screen images of recent times: people having outdoor mud baths while the smoke from bombs can be seen in the distance. It's a shot that encapsulates the power of this film and also a sentiment that is expressed by Kuyalnik's little community: "Life goes on."
Great for the spirit, and great for Irish cinema.
