A new BBC4 documentary, 'Sanatorium', offers a haunting glimpse into a crumbling Soviet-era health resort in Odesa, Ukraine. The 90-minute film, part of the Storyville series, follows patients and staff at the Kuyalnik resort as they navigate daily life under the shadow of war.
The resort's main treatment is thick, oily mud, scooped from the Black Sea estuary and applied as a cure-all for ailments like bad backs, psoriasis, and dodgy knees. Patients smear themselves from toes to chin or lie wrapped in mud blankets on treatment tables.
War is a constant presence: sirens warn of Russian drone and missile attacks, forcing staff and clients to shuffle to basement shelters. Among the guests is Inna, a widow whose husband was killed on the front line, seeking distraction from grief. She laments that only elderly or disabled men remain in her village.
Director Gar O'Rourke captures the resort's boredom with long, slow shots of cleaners pushing trolleys and couples ignoring each other in the canteen. The general manager, Dmitry, a genial man of around 25 stone, swears fluently but clearly loves the resort, now 80 per cent vacant.
The documentary features no narration; everyone speaks Ukrainian with English subtitles. It offers a unique window into a vanished Communist world, where residents grumble and bicker, yet find a strange comfort in the place.
