Battlefield 6, the newest big first-person shooter video game, cost $400 million to produce and grossed nearly that much in its first month. The video game industry now dwarfs Hollywood and the Battlefield games are one of its biggest franchises. But in the film world a real first-person shooter is also on offer, made at a fraction of the cost and, unfortunately, earning a fraction of the attention. Filmed almost entirely through the helmet cams of Ukrainian soldiers and by its courageous director, 2000 Meters to Andriivka offers one of the most visceral and haunting portraits of the Ukraine war to date.
After the global success of his 2023 film 20 Days in Mariupol, Ukrainian filmmaker Mstyslav Chernov returned to his country’s front lines to tell a new story. As Ukraine began its heavily telegraphed 2023 counteroffensive, Chernov’s roaming eye alighted on a single platoon from 3rd Assault Brigade, which had been tasked with liberating the ruined village of Andriivka.
To the poor bloody infantry tasked with executing their piece of a much larger operation, the mission was simple: Take ground. Ground is what Chernov gives his viewers from the opening frame, as a high-explosive shell lands just yards from a pair of soldiers in a trench, showering the camera lens in dirt. Their comrades pile in and out of armored personnel carriers, then advance on foot through shell-churned mud one minute, dense brush the next. Though fighting on his native soil, one Ukrainian soldier says, “It’s like landing on a planet where everything is trying to kill you.”
Unmanned systems provide some of the most stunning visuals in the film. A vast cemetery, flags flying over every grave, shifts to a forest of spectral trees, filmed from a drone’s thermal camera. Early on, slow-scrolling drone footage of the forested battlefield lays it out as a green carpet to the objective. Choppier drone videos from later in the battle show only stumps and shell holes, and the soldiers crawling between them.
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Events on Ukraine-Russia
