Questionable Foundations for a National Cinema: Ukrainian Poetic Cinema of the 1960s

When Soviet Union begun to crumble in late 1980s and glasnost replaced official ideology, Ukrainian cinema responded with a resurrection of a twenty-two year old film rather than with a new production that would take advantage of new political openness. The release of Krynytsia dlia sprahlykh (A Well-Spring for Thirsty), made in 1966 but released only at end of 1987, initiated, on one hand, a new era in history of Ukrainian cinema and, on other, put Ukrainian cinema into a retrospective mode which has hindered its development during 1990s.I Due to its belated release, film and its director Yuri Ilienko, became synonymous with idea of a national cinema in newly independent Ukraine. The high critical regard for Ilienko was extended to 1960s cinematic movement that made him famous: Ukrainian Poetic Cinema. Why does ghost of a bygone era still haunt film-makers in Ukraine today? Why does model of national cinema envisioned over 30 years ago under totalitarian Soviet regime still dominate Any discussion on national cinema in independent Ukraine? Moreover, why are films which had little or no impact on general audiences in Ukraine considered to be representative of a national group these audiences belong to? In answering these questions this paper attempts to take a close look at Ukrainian Poetic Cinema of 1960s as a cinematic and cultural phenomenon that shaped cinema of independent Ukraine in 1990s. Although main focus of paper is on cinema I also try to analyse much broader cultural implications. The post-colonial status of post-Soviet space in which Ukrainian cinema finds itself today demands a search for answers in a complex historical process which formed present Ukrainian society and her artists. Ukrainian Poetic Cinema of 1960s is a cultural phenomenon which shaped generation of Ukrainians who actively sought creation of an independent Ukrainian state and who were first to proscribe a national cultural model for this new state. Therefore, Ukrainian Poetic Cinema is both a cinematic and a general cultural phenomenon that provided groundwork for creation (or absence) of a national cinema in independent Ukraine of 1990s. The story of Ukrainian Poetic Cinema begins on set of Tini zabutykh predkiv (Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors) in 1964. The production brought together director Sarkis Paradzhanian (better known as Sergei Paradzhanov), cameraman Yuri Ilienko, and actor Ivan Mykolaichuk, all of whom continued to make their own films, as well as artists Hryhorii Yakutovych (set designer) and Myroslav Skoryk (composer). As most participants admit production was a truly cooperative effort. The resulting film proved to be not only a challenge to socialist realist film style in Soviet Union but also a picture that could successfully compete at film festivals around world.2 Why has Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors appealed to international critics and audiences?3 The film had a stylistic and thematic freshness unexpected from a film originating in Soviet Union. The universal appeal of its tragic story, quickly summarized by foreign critics as shadows of unforgotten Shakespeare or the Romeo and Juliette of Carpathians, played to tune familiar to Western cultures.4 A journey to his own destruction taken by Ivan, main character, after death of his beloved Marichka was yet another well utilized romantic motif used in film. However, film's originality did not come from its story but from its setting. Like its model, modernist novel by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky, film was set among Hutsuls, a Ukrainian tribe living high in Carpathian Mountains oblivious to politics, changing regimes and borders, and in general to progress taking place below them. Hutsuls had a complex system of beliefs combining pagan, Catholic and Orthodox world views, had preserved otherwise forgotten rituals and customs and spoke a Ukrainian dialect little affected by language politics. …