Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors

Set among Hutsul villages in the Carpathians. As a boy Ivan sees his father killed in a brawl, and the killer is the father of the girl he loves. He and Marichka grow up together and attach themselves to each other despite the feud between the families. One day she dies in the mountains. Ivan marries someone else but never comes back to this world. The film buries its story inside folk ritual: birth, wedding, funeral, sorcery, all shown as they are and without explanation. Colour is part of the telling; in some passages the image drains away entirely into a single hue. Sergei Parajanov directed, with Yuri Ilyenko as cinematographer. The camera is almost a character here, handheld, spinning, running, and obeying none of the shooting conventions of the sixties. The source is the novel by the Ukrainian writer Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky. It opened on 22 March 1965. Soviet officials and the local press accused it of failing to conform to official socialist realism. Abroad it took sixteen festival prizes and established Parajanov as a major figure in world cinema. Those same years were the beginning of his troubles with the authorities. Who it is for: anyone who likes poetic cinema, storytelling built on folk culture, and unorthodox camerawork. Who it is not for: anyone wanting a straight story. The film keeps abandoning narrative for ritual, nothing guides the viewer except the chapter titles, and some scenes stay closed to anyone unfamiliar with Hutsul culture.