Review: ALMOST HOLY is Challenging Look at Vigilante Priest in Ukraine

A priest who splits his time between a Roman collar and a jacket and army boots. Kids who love him, and ones who flee from him on the streets. A popular anti-drug crusader and savior of children, or a vigilante wrecking an already-damaged Ukraine? ALMOST HOLY, which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival and is scheduled to release on May 20, wants to find out if this nearly obsessive near-superhero of the streets in a Ukrainian city is a hero or a villain, and the results are... mixed.

Director Steve Hoover has won prior awards at Sundance. Executive Producer Terrence Malick is, well, Terrence Malick. Hoover's editing on this is worthy of note, as is the music by Atticus Ross and Bobby Ross. Equally worthy, however, is the subject himself, Orthodox priest Ghenadiy Mokhnenko.

"I don't need permission to do good deeds." That certainly extends to helping old ladies across the street and to buying cartons of Girl Scout Thin Mint cookies, or to donating to a homeless shelter. But does it extend to cruising the streets at night, throwing children in vans, and taking them to an institution? Mokhnenko, builder of Pilgrim Republic Children's Rehabilitation Center and forty other rehabs in the Ukraine, has rescued many children from homelessness and drugs (the young ages of the children with needle tracks on their arms and who are already alcoholic we meet in this film are horrifying; one has been self-medicating on vodka since he was four years old), has personally adopted thirty-two children, and found homes for thousands. He's brought people into detox, out of rape and into mental health clinics, and dragged drug dealers to police stations with his bare hands. He leads public anti-drug marches to keep pharmacists from handing out opiates without prescriptions. It's laudable, even praiseworthy, no?

We might be more comfortable with those good deeds, though, if Mokhnenko did get permission. He and his helpers beat up dealers, threaten a rapist with death, and drag children off in the dead of night without notice. The Ukraine the former Soviet Army member turned priest sees is a wild West with few or no laws, police and government who fail to intervene, and children dying in the streets. What Ukrainian television sees is a vigilante with no respect for the laws that exist, who takes the law into his own hands, and who isn't afraid of harming stray innocents along with miscreants.

This beautifully-filmed documentary of Mokhnenko and his works, aided by Mokhnenko's having a decent grasp of English, shows him speaking to a group at a women's prison, with his stories interwoven with footage of the actuality of those incidents, or similar ones. We see him with his family, with the children he helps, with a rape victim, with addicts, the picture of loving, priestly benevolence. We also see him working out, boxing and training, and telling news show interviewers that God strengthens his fist. No one doubts his charitable and praiseworthy intentions, but much of the public of his town, Mariupol, and the rest of the Ukraine are uncomfortable with his methods.

It's hard not to be sympathetic to the "when the government ignores it, the citizens must act!" school of social activism, especially in the Ukraine, where the fall of the Soviet Republic left social services systems and much else of the government in shambles. And that same philosophy is what makes charitable organizations happen. But there's a reason that Batman is a debatable hero, and the same is true of Father Mokhnenko.

There's a popular children's show in Russia, CROCODILE GHENADIY, of a big green crocodile who saves children, and who teaches love and acceptance. Bits of it are cut in with Mokhnenko's actions, comparing him to this other savior of children, which has earned him the nickname "Pastor Crocodile." But there's a clip of the croc facing off with the government for stealing a compressor, which the green non-meanie has used to build a park for the children. The authority who sees the happy children in the beautiful park lets the croc off the hook and doesn't bother to ask for the compressor's return. It's not the way we want to raise our children, though the story is adorable. However, it's how Mokhnenko runs his life as a rescuer.

Bits of Mokhnenko's childhood are given; he's an adult child of alcoholics, parents who would drink until they passed out and would be found that way often when he would return home from school or other times away. It's a situation that's known to create early identification with parenting and with rescuing. It may be the root of Mokhnenko's radical approaches and obsessive need to save somebody.

And he's doing a great service. But perhaps he's doing it all the wrong way. He doesn't so much shelter the needy as grab them from wherever they are, have them strip-searched and showered, and then house them. Under any circumstances, it's not optimal.

But where the government has failed or does not exist, the Church has stepped in before, throughout history. Is Mokhnenko doing that same thing, or is he exercising purely vigilante rescues? Is he right or wrong? He rescues a woman found naked on the ground, a repeated victim of domestic violence. He and his team take her in, clean her and feed her, and then ask whether she'd like to stay at one of their centers, or whether she wants them to evict her husband so she can return home, knowing that he will never return? Mokhnenko has no authority to evict; he and his people trade on his name and public fear in such things. But one cannot avoid secretly rooting for him to get back at her abuser for her. The most ironic part? He reveals that she's a doctor, who would advise other women on how to care for themselves in such matters. He also admits that his children's rehab center is as much a prison as it is a hospital.

But he's a man who lets a boy who doesn't know his family's name construct a new name and identity for himself. He's delighted with the Western innovation of gas station plazas with hot dogs and coffee. He's able to delight in the beach in the fall, when no one else is there. And he's a philosopher of the fall of the Soviet Union, and of the war in the Ukraine that mirrors his own war on the streets. He's possibly the most interesting subject of a documentary in at least a few years, and the documentary created is worthy of the man that Mokhnenko, with all of his contrasts and complexities, is. Not only shown at Tribeca, but, not surprisingly, at the Human Rights Film Festival, ALMOST HOLY is as complex and compelling as the man who inspired it. Hoover is a brilliant director and editor, and perhaps Terrence Malick should do this more often.

Production company: Animal. Opens May 20, look for downloads and DVDs beginning in August. Not to be missed, for many reasons.

Photo Credits: Animal

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