Sombras dos Ancestrais Esquecidos

Thank god for this man. He could have given us this one film and still changed the medium twice as most filmmakers have done in a lifetime. It deserves to be studied by anyone working today in movies and looking for rich multilayered intuition. This man has centuries in him.

The story is deceptively simple; young man loves, loses, and has to scramble on with life. But the way it burrows into you and speaks now, even though it's from another time, well, the way it's done is from another world.

To Western viewers, it will seem quite literally like something from another world. It profoundly speaks to me because I was lucky that me and him share a part of that other world, the one closer to the steppe. The difference between worlds is simple; in the West, you had the luxury of painting and theater, and music melded into that with opera, so when cinema rolled around a few centuries later, there was already an established reservoir of ways to see and imagine. The first films were little more than filmed plays with the camera assuming the role of the audience, later renovated in France (partly) through the influence of impressionist painting.

Parajanov was Armenian, which is to say from that world that ages ago was swept by invaders from the steppe. There was no lofty art allowed in the centuries of Ottoman blight, nowhere in the empire. There was no Rennaisance. Not there and not where I write this from. Our painting was religious icons. Our theater was song and dance. The collective soul had to pour that way, which is why they still persist and resonate in these parts; in the work of Kazantzakis, Bregovic, Kusturica and others, also why Western-influenced makers like Angelopoulos or Ceylan speak far less to the common folk.

You have to appreciate the significance of this in terms of cinema. There was already an established Soviet tradition in film in those days, Parajanov was a student at the prestigious VGIK after all. But, he chose to go even beyond Dovzhenko, a teacher of his at VGIK, who framed his films, back when he was still allowed by censors, as poetic remembrance of ancient past.

The memory of it was not enough, it had to have soul of its own now, what in the Spanish-speaking world is called the duende. It had to be a song that cuts deep and rises from bloody earth.

But, this is the genius of Parajanov. So a memory that is sang and danced out by the camera, and because he is not constrained by a visual tradition, the world of the film is freeform and spontaneous waters, an absolute marvel to watch. But he doesn't just photograph the iconography of the dance from the outside, simple pageantry.

That iconography is vivid and immediate in itself, you don't need special keys. Austere suffering saints look down at suffering. The mourning fire that burns in him and has to go out by itself. A lamb is caressed the way his soul needs it. Songs as hearsay overlain on scenes of life.

That is all melody to the song, lyrical cadence in terms of images. We'd be lucky if most filmmakers saw that far, most just center on story or character and parse out what beats result. Parajanov does neither, in a similar way to his friend Tarkovsky.

He provides deeply felt illogical machinery of that world to swim into, remember this is a world where sorcery is believed and wards off a storm, and prayer manifests as a lout from the woods looking for sex, in other words, we are not mere spectators to a gaudy visual dance from faraway times, the film is made so that we feel the urges and pulls of the world dancing around us. He pulls fabric to film from the ether around the edges of someome experiencing a story, the same deeply felt air that a singer cannot put to words and responds to with a song.

Look for the amazing finale. The film is bookended by death, but it's death that none of the individual scenes reasonably explain, it can only maybe have allusive extra-logical sense in being pieced by you. It is something that specifically has meaning that you let go. The thing is that him confronting or being confronted at the tavern, is, in itself, knowing about the sorcerer and his wife, knowing at the same instant that his father's death was the result of a similarly veiled and bubbling causality, knowing all in once that the universe, the cosmic dance, is not random but has inexplicable agency.

An invisible axe is spunning and cutting the tethers.

The way Parajanov filmed has been taken up by many, sure enough, Malick included. But we just haven't found more eloquent solutions to narrative, not in Malick, not in Lynch. I'm not just waxing. On top of everything else, the way causalities are overlain here is as intricate as I've seen in a film.

The first great film from the greatest director in post-war Soviet Union. The experience is almost like being strapped to a malfunctioning rollercoaster, as a relatively straightforward story - young man falls in love with neighbour; she dies; he mourns; remarries; still loves dead mate (Wuthering Heights anyone?) - is violently attacked by hurling camera movements that reveal the most vertiginous spaces, both exterior and interior; bizarre angles (eg from a falling tree); a restless mix of music from Kusturica-like horn blowers, shards of modernism and thrilling Romanticism; content that blends myth, dreams, legends, folk tales etc.; and editing that bewilders and disrupts rather than matches and connects. A brilliant recreation of a forgotten culture and times that was a dangerous two-fingers to totalitarianism.

This is one of the best movies ever made!!! I don't think even that describes how strongly I feel for this movie and its director. In a world of cinematic rubbish Paradjanov stands as a warrior fighting for long lost cause; making a movie that actually transcends the viewer to the world the director is trying to create. It has the most unique camera angles and shots that were made in most amazing proximity. The richness of its photography will take you to the Carpathian Mountains and leave you astonished. This movie is full or drama, folklore and above all, it surpasses all the cinematic standards ever set for a motion picture. Made in the sixties, during Soviet regime, this movie was banned from the screen for it's symbolic context and references to religion. Starting from the opening scene to the very last one, it will keep you on the edge and it will exceed every expectation you have for it. You won't only watch it but you'll live it. If you're a true cinema lover watch this film...it'll change your life.

I was brought up in a backward Polish village where the Ukrainian background was also present (I could in most part understand the language of the movie). This movie reminded me of my long forgotten childchood in a place where people didn't lock their houses and lived very simple lives. Magnificent visual effects, melodious folk music and probably the music of Sergei Prokofiev or someone close to his style complete the picture. I believe it is a universal story about love, life, death and that all things that are nice are turning into oblivion. I myself emigrated to America, then came back after some years, though changed and working mostly for Western companies. Though being generally a child of Western European and American culture I acknowledge that it pays to keep at least part of our original heritage. Miroslaw

Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors is set in Western Ukraine (Carpathian mountains) circa the 1860's. It was banned in the USSR because it emphasized the unique Ukrainian culture and in fact the language throughout the film was Ukrainian and not Russian. Plus the references to the Church and religion could not have helped. The story is deceptively simple. As a child, Ivan falls in love with his neighbor and fathers killers daughter Marichka. The first half of the film deals with that love and the second with Ivan's downfall after she dies in an accident.

Shadows would probably not appeal to someone looking for great acting, strong characterizations and emotional pull. But, it more than makes up for these deficiencies in its visual brilliance and authenticity of periodic detail. This is one of the most beautiful looking films ever made. The elaborate costumes, the folk songs and simple village life all create a world that you know just had to have existed. Not exactly commercial fare, Shadows is a stunningly beautiful looking film and in fact a lesson in old Ukrainain culture. I highly recommend this for art-house film fans.