This is How Movies Should Be Made

It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

From the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die is where I found this Ukrainian film, of course like so many of the other foreign film entries I never heard of it before reading about it, but I hoped it was worthy of that placing, directed by Sergei Parajanov (The Colour of Pomegranates). Basically in the Carpathian mountains of Ukraine is a small Hutsul village, since childhood Ivan (Ivan Mykolaichuk) and Marichka (Larisa Kadochnikova) known each other, and as young adults they have fallen in love, Marichka is the daughter of the man who killed Ivan's father, their families are hostile toward each other. Ivan leaves the village to find work and earn money for he and Marichka to marry and make a household, unfortunately while trying to rescue a lost lamb Marichka slips into a river and drowns, Ivan returns to find her body and falls into despair, he continues to work in joyless toil. That is until, while shoeing a horse, he meets Palagna (Tatyana Bestayeva), they later marry in a traditional Hutsul wedding, blindfolded and harnessed together, but Ivan remains by the memory of Marichka and the marriage turns sour quickly, while her distant and experiencing hallucinations Palagna becomes involved with local Yurko the Sorcerer (Spartak Bagashvili). Ivan witnesses the sorcerer and Palagna embracing and one his friends being struck, roused into uncharacteristic fury Ivan threatens with his axe, but he is struck down the sorcerer, he ends up stumbling into the woods and perceives Marichka's spirit being with him, reflected in water and gliding among trees. Reality merges into a dream and Ivan believes that Marichka's hand is outstretched to reach his, at this point he falls into the great space in front, screaming to his death, Ivan is given a traditional Hutsul burial by the community, with children watching from windows. I will admit that having to read subtitles at the time as the action made it difficult for me to follow everything going on, but I could definitely hallucinatory moments with the shaky camera movement, interesting manipulations and cutting and its use of strange sounds, I really like the scenery and use of colour as well, it is a disorientating, unusual expressionistic and quite watchable drama. Good!

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors was a nice film that made for a really unique viewing experience. It tells the life story of a boy named Ivan as he grows up and enters two defining romantic relationships, the second of which brings about his untimely demise. Shadows caught my attention for its engaging camera work within the first half of the film, where the camera's movement was incredibly intense and really brought the film to life. While in the second half of the film the camera is far more static, early on the camera did a few really distinctive things. First, it was continually unsteady, when it wasn't whipping us rapidly around the scene; I found that this caused an exhilarating disorienting effect. Also, while Ivan was still a child the camera would often film from a child's perspective, at knee level, looking up to adults that were having a discussion, which I found to be interesting. The landscape shots that were captured were extremely beautiful and later in the film, the camera did have some of the "running" motion that was seen in The Cranes Are Flying, though this time it was not from the perspective of any character. In another similarity to Cranes, as well as Ivan's Childhood, there was a major tree motif within the film. Shadows reminded me of a silent film at times with the lack of dialogue and the style of acting that was present, though this is not a knock in anyway, in fact I found it to be quite beautiful. The use of colors to express emotional states is also added to the quality of the film, as did the richness of the color when it was present. Shadows brought an intense nostalgic quality to the screen and is defined by how great of a visual experience it is.

Paradzhanov's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors has a lot going on. The story is not complex – a young Ukrainian peasant (Ivan) falls in love with the daughter of the man who murdered his father, and struggles in an unhappy marriage with different woman after his love dies tragically – but it is by no means easy to watch. The cinematographic strategies ignore the standards of Socialist Realism; the shooting techniques vary wildly with each scene, and the film actually transitions to black-and-white for a period. Shots come from below the actors, high in the air, spinning with dancers or sprinting with horses. The effect is very voyeuristic; we see lovers screened through a lattice of branches and leaves, and in one scene, what appears to be a first-person shot from the eyes of the Ivan going prone at the sight of a deer is muddled when he appears in the shot, making one suddenly very aware of the cameraman's presence. This documentary feel permeates the film – the elaborate costumes, the nearly constant presence of folk music, and the extreme attentiveness to details of ritual and labor have a completely immersive effect – one gets a real sense of the village culture. Paradzhanov also has a strange predilection for recurring motifs: three horn-players are shown repeatedly, a necklace is torn from a naked chest in two different scenes, Ivan's brother and lover are buried with identical birch crosses on different hilltops. These subtle but unmistakable recurrences, tied with the progression from Ivan's childhood to adulthood, keep one mentally tied to the story, despite Ivan's general muteness. In a creative opposition to the relative lack of dialogue, Paradzhanov frequently accompanies scenes with narrative descriptions from various participants, as if talking to a friend, after the fact. The film is not without flaws; some alienating aspects of Russian avant-garde cinema are present, at certain points it is unclear how or why scenes are occurring. Intertitles are sometimes present to demystify the action, but the film is, for lack of a better word, difficult to watch. However, the beauty and attention to detail, as well as the almost astonishing variety in thematic elements and camera-work, make this film impressive and worth one's time.

After I saw "Pomegranates" I looked very much forward to seeing this film. As others have commented, it is visually astounding - the entire work. It is also very foreign. The film takes place in the Ukraine and the language is Ukrainian, the action taken from folk stories occurs centuries before in a culture as foreign to the Western European mind as if it had been shot in the Far East with little attempt to explain it as it rolls along. I am a professional performing musician and one of the valuable lessons I've learned over the years was that the public can take only so much "foreigness" in an artistic work before the brain tunes it out - or shuts it down. The sound track was the culprit here where crying became wailing and bawling, singing became intoning at best or screeching and people tended to scream rather than talk with each other. It was a very loud track and became unpleasant and over-stressed with little interruption. The noise in itself was absolutely exhausting. True, these were unfamiliar times with unfamiliar people and unusual instruments and music, but as I mentioned above, the mind tunes them out, whether we like it or not.Curtis Stotlar