Charismatic and somewhat sinisterly convinced of his own inviolate righteousness, Pastor Gennadiy Mokhnenko runs the rehab centre-cum-orphanage Pilgrim in the Ukrainian city of Mariupol. Working outside what little law the town has in place, Mokhnenko scoops up drug-addicted and abused kids and gives them shelter, sometimes even legally adopting them as own.
This highly stylised documentary by Steve Hoover, years in the making, clearly wants viewers to accept him as a saint of sorts, hence the title, and there’s no doubt the shelter he offers victims is preferable to the atrocities they face beyond Pilgrim’s walls. But a telling scene where he gets worked up about the “criticism” of him on his Wikipedia page hints at a darker side to his character, and he doesn’t take kindly to a journalist querying his vigilante methods.
Terrence Malick takes an executive producer credit here, as he did with The Seventh Fire, another recent doc about a troubled impoverished community, and his influence can arguably be felt in the slow-motion shots of kids doing backflips on trampolines and the drifty, arty soundtrack.
