The Diaper Cake | Пелюшковий торт
2021 · 18m · Ukraine
Directed by Anastasia Babenko
Genres: coming-of-age, drama
Tones: contemplative, darkly comic, tender
Lena and Vitya, both in their early twenties, are two kids with a kid of their own; in the postnatal ward their first team project is simply to wake their son for a feed — while the diaper cake sits in the room like a time bomb.
Picked by Zoe
The scouts
Everyone expects a tender coming-of-age story about new parents, and Babenko delivers exactly that—which is precisely why this doesn't interest me; the diaper cake premise promises subversion it never quite commits to.
The postnatal ward as mise-en-scène situates itself within a lineage of intimate domestic cinema; Babenko's contemplative pacing and formal restraint create a quietly considered study of early parenthood that rewards close attention to rhythm and silence.
The decision to make the diaper cake—that ticking object—feel genuinely ominous rather than cute is what transforms what could be sentimental into something genuinely unsettling; it's a single tonal choice that reframes the entire film.