A House Made of Splinters

This Oscar-nominated documentary about an orphanage for children in war-torn Eastern Ukrainian is like an empathy megaphone, bringing their plight straight into your heart.

One of my favorite insights from a critic is Roger Ebert’s observation that “movies are like a machine that generates empathy.” We relate to films in on many different levels, but I’ve always believed that the ones that truly impact us are those that touch our hearts and make us feel deeply — especially for other people who may seem very far away from us, literally and figuratively.

“A House Made of Splinters,” freshly nominated for an Academy Award, is like an empathy megaphone. This documentary from director Simon Lereng Wilmont looks at life inside an orphanage for children in war-torn Eastern Ukraine. Although the violence of the Russian invasion doesn’t directly impact them, the fighting is taking place just 20 miles away and the ripple effects are seen in the kids’ situations and psyches.

Their pain is raw and uncomfortable to watch at times. Most of them arrive at the center as a result of parental alcoholism, as many adults have lost their jobs during the war and turned to drink and despair.

The documentary is available today for rental on VOD and streaming services.

The Lysychansk Center for the Social and Psychological Rehabilitation of Children is sort of a stopover point for abused and neglected kids. They can only stay for up to nine months, the next step being reunited with family, finding a foster home or being sent off to a permanent orphanage.

The women who work at the center are heroines, full stop. Every time a child leaves, another immediately takes their place. They do their best to send them on their way on a better path.

We see them calling parents begging them to come visit their kids, counseling youngsters to not turn to despair or mischief. They brush the girls’ hair, tell them they’re beautiful and worthy of love. They encourage the boys to become men better than their fathers.

Some of the kids make it. Many don’t. The women — Irina, Marharyta, Olga and Anjelika — have been doing this long enough the parents dropping off their kids once lived there themselves.

We see lots of faces and stories in the background, but the documentary focuses on four children who come and go. We witness the passage of time by how their hair grows and is cut short. We also see their evolution, these brief months cramming an entire adolescence of anxiety and self-reckoning into their stay.

A hopeful story is Eva, a pixie-like girl of about 10. We watch her desperately calling her mother on the only phone available to the children. Oftentimes the calls don’t go through because of war interruptions. Even when they do, the voice on the other line is usually slurred or dismissive.

A major decision the leaders of the center have to make is whether to push for revocation of parental rights. It’s a hard choice, but sometimes the only one that makes sense for the wellbeing of the child. Pleas to Eva’s grandmother to take her on find a sympathetic ear.

More harrowing is the tale of Sasha, a younger girl who was often left alone at home for days at a time. Her demeanor is very flat and unemotional. She’s been hollowed out by trauma. We see it in the way she scolds a talking doll that’s malfunctioning, threatening to abandon her.

Sasha soon finds Alina, a girl about her age with strawberry curls. In a heartbreaking moment soon after meeting, Sasha begs her to be her best (read: only) friend.

At first Alina seems manipulative and off-putting, preferring to play-wrestle with Sasha rather than relate to her. But in time a true bond begins to form. Of course, both girls are also desperately hoping for either their parents to reform or to find a good foster home, so underlying their relationship is the knowledge it is fleeting.

Alina and Sasha confide to each other that they have drank beer — and not just once. When one grows up with alcoholic parents, it’s like walking every day on the edge of a precipice.

Alina has her own journey and setbacks. In one instance, other girls at the center set up a fortune telling table for fun. Most of them receive predictions glowing with promise, but Alina’s fortune is that she will follow in her mother’s footsteps, turn to booze and abandon her daughter just as she has been.

You can see the light go out of Alina’s eyes. Cruelty is the coin of the realm in which they are trapped.

Perhaps most disturbing is the plight of Kolya, a troublemaking boy of about 12 or 13. He’s constantly running away from the center, only to be turned away at home. He’s fallen in with some older boys and the police have picked him up several times for theft and other petty crimes. There are slashes on his arm that are clearly self-inflicted. He can be aggressive toward other kids and sullen to the staff.

He’s racing down a road to ruin, the victim become victimizer. And yet Kolya is capable of moments of incredible vulnerability and sensitivity. He weeps when his mother finally comes to visit him, already drunk in the morning. Kolya has two younger siblings with him at the center, and the way he dotes on his youngest sister, little more than a toddler, will leave you in a puddle.

In addition to being a terrific observational film that generates an ocean of empathy, I believe “A House Made of Splinters” has another function: it’s an antidote to polarization.

So much of what ails us to day is a society ruled by tribalism and conflict. We talk at each other but not to each other. We perform in online platforms, seeking clicks and attention with the most outrageous barbs. We speak endlessly but do not listen.

Here is a simple little film about lost children who need a home, and love. A couple of hours experiencing their plight will magnify our ability to feel for others, and maybe even quiet for a bit the quarrelsome din of daily life.