Personally, I believe that film fits the first framework mentioned. Although there isn’t much of a falling action or denouement, the film follows the sequence of a dramatic arc and makes note to show the theme and motivation. We come to understand that the theme here is how the normal citizens of a city have been greatly impacted by the effects of a deadly war. The motivation behind the film is to tell the story of the attack on Ukraine and of those who have been injured, killed, and suffered loss as a result of the attack. The exposition is revealed at the beginning, giving the audience a taste of what’s to come, when a clip of a tank is shown and we find out that doctors and patients are being surrounded by Russian troops. The rising action is the actual attack on Mariupol, where we see various scenes of infrastructure deteriorating due to shelling and missiles being fired at civilian locations. The climax or turning point in the film happens when Mariupol is now surrounded by Russian troops and it is said that there is no way out, safely. At this point, civilians have nothing and nowhere to live. Electricity, water, supplies, along with cell phone and radio lines have been cut.
I think the closest we get to a falling action is when we see the journalist make it out of Mariupol while it’s still under attack. There’s still no real resolution or denouement because two years later, the war is still taking place and as the journalist left Maripol, there were still more civilians left behind that couldn’t be saved.
For me, this was jarring to watch. I had a surface understanding of what was happening between Ukraine and Russia, but this opened my eyes to the severity of this deadly, ongoing conflict between the two territories.