For Ukrainians, Atlantis must come across as an important piece of filmmaking.

Set in 2025, after an endurance conflict between Ukraine and Russia, the land is toxic and barren, and the only people we see are soldiers cleaning up the mess of a war-torn country and factory workers clinging to a job that's unlikely to last for long.

It's gloomy joyless stuff.

But for the casual audience bystander, Atlantis may not amount to much.

When there's dialogue between two people, it's more or less engaging, despite the lack of story. But when there are 10 minute still shots of nothing of importance materializing (which is often throughout the film),I'm sorry to say that it was like watching paint dry.

As it stands, Atlantis doesn't concern itself with the merits of a traditional narrative. Instead, it chooses to simply display an oppressive dystopia in a broken country.

Blink and you might miss something. This is a film that develops slowly, is mostly quiet, and can be frustrating. It builds slowly, scene upon scene, to tell the story of a country damaged by war with those left forced to think about their motivations and what comes next. I didn't quite know what I was watching until the end when I was pleasantly surprised that everything added up to a new kind of film that was quite worth my attention. There is nothing sci-fi about this so don't get your hopes up. This film is, however, absolutely beautiful to look at and has a strong directorial point of view, examining environment, machine, space, and our relation to them.

Probably some will find is a little boring and slow paced, but all the acting is done by real soldiers from conflict. This is a more a zeitgeist film about what is life in conflict zone.