Adapted from Ukrainian Mikhaylo Koysyubinskiy’s novel, Sergei Paradjanov‘s extraordinary merging of myth, history, poetry, ethnography, dance, and ritual remains one of the supreme works of the Soviet sound cinema, and even subsequent Paradjanov features have failed to dim its intoxicating splendors.
Set in the harsh and beautiful Carpathian Mountains, the film tells of a doomed love between a couple belonging to feuding families, Ivan (Ivan Mikolajchuk) and Marichka (Larisa Kadochnikova), and of Ivan’s life and marriage after Marichka’s death.
The plot is affecting, but it serves Paradjanov mainly as an armature to support the exhilarating rush of his lyrical camera movements (executed by master cinematographer Yuri llyenko), his innovative use of nature and interiors, his deft juggling of folklore and fancy in relation to pagan and Christian rituals, and his astonishing handling of color and music.
A film worthy of Aleksandr Dovzhenko, whose poetic vision of Ukrainian life is frequently alluded to, Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors also evokes fairy tales in general and even at times some of Walt Disney’s animated representations of their settings, such as the cottage in Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937).
The visceral physicality of many other shots is no less unmistakable, exemplified by a startling one early on which places the camera on top of a just-chopped tree—taking the viewer with it on its vertiginous plunge toward the ground.
