The Eve of Ivan Kupalo

Yurii Illienko's 1968 Ukrainian film is adapted from Gogol's story of the same name. Petro, a poor farmhand, makes a bargain with a devil so that he can marry the woman he loves, and learns the price of the wealth afterwards. The film does not tie its telling to plot. Folk belief, the rite of leaping the fire and scenes of sorcery are built out of colour and movement; Illienko came from cinematography and uses the camera almost as a narrator. This manner came to be called Ukrainian poetic cinema and collided with the Soviet cultural authorities of the period; the film stayed out of circulation for a long time and could only be widely seen years later. Who it's for: those who like poetic cinema and literary adaptation. Who it's not for: viewers expecting a followable plot; the narrative advances by the sequence of its images.