Ukrainian cinema

Ukrainian cinema

The first film shooting in Ukraine took place on September 30, 1896 in Kharkiv. It was made by Alfred Fedetsky, a famous photographer. At the beginning of December the first film showing happened at the Kharkiv opera theatre with the work of the pioneer of the national cinema. However, before the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century the film distribution was developing quicker than the own production of films. Start of the film industry as it is began from foundation of the South-Russian Joint-Stock Company Sakhnenko and Co. It mainly concentrated on producing films on the history of Ukraine. Taras Bulba, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, Zaparozhets za Dunayem / A Dnieper Cossack beyond the Danube, Obloha Zaporizhya / Siege of Zaporizhya, Mazepa - for the first time the Ukrainians could see the events of the past in the magical square of the screen. Popular were also screen versions of the plays of Ukrainian playwrights made by the director Oleksiy Oleksiyenko. Unfortunately, practically none of these films have been preserved. 
 
Properly the Ukrainian cinema started in the twenties of the last century after foundation of VUFKU (All-Ukrainian Photo and Cinema Administration). Cinema industry was ruined then. Thanks to fortunate policy which foresaw independence from the state financial sources, until the end of the decade cinema production complexes were rebuilt and new ones built in Odessa, Yalta and Kyiv in Ukraine. Substantially, the problem of films for mass audience has been solved by such films as Ostap Bandura (1924) by Volodymyr 
 
Hardin, Ukrasia (1925), Taras Shevchenko (1926), Taras Tryasylo (1927) by Petro Chardynin, PKP / Pilsudsky bought Petlyura (1926) by Aksel Lundin and Georgiy Stabovy and by a number of other films oriented for work with such genres which have already passed the testing in folk art and were adapted for the needs of the cinema. 
 
At the same time formation of the auteur cinema was taking place. Olexandr Dovzhenko, not long ago a diplomat and a caricature artist, starts from the films of "popular", "low" genres (a comedy Yahidka kokhannya / A Berry of Love, 1926, an action movie Sumka Dipkuryera / Diplomatic Pouch, 1927). However, thereafter appeared such films which brought fame to the author, first all in Europe and then in the whole world: Zvenyhora (1928), Arsenal (1929), Zemlya / The Earth (1930). The pivotal character here is a Messianic person whose mission is to introduce radical changes into the national universe, infused on the peasant mythologies. This is a strong protagonist from the new generation of the Bolsheviks who has to break the natural flow of actions. However, it is namely the Nature that is probably the main character of the film the Earth shot by a genius of a cameraman Danylo Demutsky. The Nature opposes the attack on the primordial redoubts of the peasant civilization... As a result, the film was subjected to severe criticism and its author soon (already after appearance of the next film Ivan, made in 1932) had to move to work in Moscow under supervision of Joseph Stalin himself. 
 
The dramatic collisions of the recent civilization "breaks" introduced into life by the Bolsheviks regime and its ideology was reproduced with talent in the films Dva dni / Two days (1927) by Georgiy Stabovy and Nichny Viznyk / The Night Cabman (1929) by Georgiy Tasin. In the named film let us note the wonderful force of acting by Amvrosiy Buchma. It is worth naming also such outstanding auteur films as Provokator / The Provocateur (1928) by Victor Turin and Fata Morgana (1931) by Borys Tyahno. 
 
His own philosophy of being appears also in the films of Ivan Kavaleridze who came to the art of cinema from the art of sculpture. The national history is represented in definite stereoscopy and length - the talk is about the films Zlyva / The Downpour (1929), Perekop (1930), Shturmovi Nochi / Stormy Nights (1931), Koliyivshchina (1933). In the works of the master the main type of presenting the time and the space in the art of those times was reproduced with special expressiveness - the old patriarchal world is coming to the end of its self-development; movement of the time is maximally speeded up (Chas, Vpered / Time, Forward!" - the most popular slogan in the thirties). Thus, the place of action changes - instead of the slow peasant life one can see the powerful industrial complexes. A man is mastering the new life rhythms and in this the real progress and hope for the happy future is seen.

 
An evolution of the state and social order in the USSR and, correspondingly, in Ukraine (the consequence was the Holodomor (famine genocide) of 1932-1933, killing of the intellectuals, cultivation of the slave psychology) in the thirties and the forties led to formation of the rigid ideological frames, which determined the creative behaviour of the masters, their feelings and thoughts. A man who is part and property of the state becomes the main cinema character, a typical engine of the dramatic conflict - betrayal by an individual of the collective, collectivist ideology. The conflict of Aerograd / Aerocity (1935) by Dovzhenko is based, for example, namely on this. The idea of another film of the same director Shchors (1939) is about creation of the brotherhood of the people fascinated by the dream about the bright communist future. An epic picture of life is shown to us - a story about birth of the new life, about overcoming of the elements, of the anarchy. Humour, as well as lively, realistically reproduced characters saved the film from the poor sketchiness and pomposity. 
 
An epic source was probably most clearly shown in the films of Ihor Savchenko. First of all, in the films Vershnyky / the Riders (1939) and Bohdan Khmelnytsky (1941). The history is made by the people whose thinking is in the interests of the state - they can see in their heads the future imperial integrity (naturally renovated). The support of the folk culture of humour helps also here present the picture of life in stereoscopy, in the variety of colours and sounds. 
 
Production of the films Nazar Stodolya (1937) based on the play of Taras Shevchenko and Karmelyuk (1938) by Georgiy Tasin, screening of the stories of Mykola Gogol Sorochinsky Yarmarok / The Fair at Sorochintsy (1939, director Mykola Ekk) and Mayska Nich / The May Night (1941, Mykola Sadkovych), popular operas Zaparozhets za Dunayem / A Dnieper Cossack beyond the Danube (1937) and Natalka Poltavka (1936) by Ivan Kavaleridze affirmed the tendency to the arrangement of traditions of the folk culture. The evidence of this were also the films of a Moscow director Ivan Pyryev Bahata Narechena / The Rich Bride (1938) and Traktoristy / Tractor Drivers (1939), made by him in Kyiv. 
 
From the general cinema process fell out the film of Abram Room Suvory Yunak / Strict Young Man (1935), which was prohibited by the censors. The film made on the motives of Yuriy Olesha's novel Zazdrist / Zavist / Envy is washed by currents of the neo-renaissance notions on the social realm - the Soviet people of those days were shown as characters of the new antiquity, full of harmony and optimism... However, the leaders of the new Soviet state saw everything differently: people are only the material and extremely imperfect, which is still to be used for the new constructions. Such ones who should be easy to lead and control. 
 
In the thirties the documentary cinema noticeably distanced itself from the realities of life, performing mostly the functions of ideological servants of the existing power. Only at the beginning of the decade in the film of Dziga Vertov Simfoniya Donbasu / The Symphony of Donbas (1930), who worked then in Ukraine, both pathos and the live structure of the life current were shown. In the horrible Holodomor (famine genocide) year of 1933 only one documentary film was made in Ukraine - The Bilshovik - about the coal miner of the coal mine Kocheharka, Mykola Izotov. The protagonists were mostly those who worked in the great industry. A peasant was perceived by the existing then power as a representative of the hostile, even enemy civilization: he had to be subdued, even using the most brutal means. 
 
From the time of the Second World War and to the beginning of the sixties there were just a few events in the Ukrainian cinema. The most noticeable film of the war time was Rayduha / The Rainbow (1943) by Mark Donskoy, which announced the new realistic quality of comprehension of the life dramas. Another of his films Dorohoyu Tsinoyu / At a High Price (1957), based on the story of Mykhaylo Kotsyubynsky, marked the return to the traditions of the editing and poetic films of the twenties and the thirties. Great success had the films of Borys Barnet (Podvyh Rozvidnyka / The Exploits of an Intelligence Man, 1947) and Volodymyr Braun (Matros Chizhyk / Sailor Chizhyk, Maksymko, Malva). A noticeable phenomenon became the film Taras Shevchenko (1951) by Ihor Savchenko. Unfortunately, Olexandr Dovzhenko after criticism of his screen script of Ukraina v Ohni / Ukraine in Fire (this was under supervision of Joseph Stalin himself who qualified this work as manifestation of the nationalistic and anti-state moods) fell from grace and had to stay in Moscow; he did not work any more in Ukraine. 
 
From the middle of the fifties directors of the younger generation start working in the Ukrainian cinema. Aesthetics of the new realism comes with them, without the cothurnus (the inflated style), ideological fireworks, with the characters shown in the modest life environment of those times. However, the romantic conception of the world, "warmed up" by the hopes of the Khrushev's "Thaw" also played its role. Vesna na Zarichniy vulytsi / Spring at the Zarichna Street (1956) and Dva Fedory / Two Fedors (1959), Pavlo Korchagin (1956) by Oleksandr Alov and Volodymyr Naumov, Dolya Maryny / Maryna's Fate (1954), My, Dvoye Muzhchin / We, the Two Men (1962) by Yuriy Lysenko, Oleksa Dovbush (1959) and Za Dvoma Zaytsyamy / Chasing Two Hares (1961) by Viktor Ivanov - these and other films gave a stimulus for creation of the new landscape of the national cinema culture. 
 
In 1964 the shooting of the film of Serhiy Paradzhanov Tini Zabutykh Predkiv / The Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors based on Mykhaylo Kotsyubynsky's story of the same name finished. The folk returns to the screen its individuality, freeing from the strict binding to the predominant ideology and politics of those times. The myths of the Hutsuls, part of the Ukrainian nation, who preserved the "wicked" pagan rituals and beliefs becomes the productive bosom for formation of the unique sensation of the world and the style. 
 
After appearance of the films Krynytsya dlya Spraglykh / A Well for the Thirsty (1965, the film was prohibited by the censors), Vechora na Ivana Kupala / The Eve of Ivan Kupalo (1968), Bily Ptakh z Chornoyu Oznakoyu / The White Bird Marked with Black (1971) by Yuriy Illenko, Kaminny Khrest / The Stone Cross (1968) by Leonid Osyka, Komissary / The Commissars (1970), Khlib i Sil / The Bread and the Salt by Grygoriy Kokhan and Mykola Makarenko, mastering the norms of the so called socialist realism became a significant factor of the cultural and public life. First of all, in accenting the problems of the personality's freedom, both individual and collective: of the folk, of the nation.

In spite of the persecutions and pressure of the censors, such films appeared in the seventies and the eighties which made an epoch in the Ukrainian and generally in the Soviet cinema: Korotki Zustrichi / Brief Encounters and Dovhi Provody / Long Goodbyes (1967, 1971) by Kira Muratova, Polyoty uvi Sni ta Nayavy / Flying in Dreams and in Reality (1981) by Roman Balayan, Grachi / The Rooks (1981) by Kostya Yershov, Vavilon ХХ / Babylon XX by Ivan Mykolaychuk, V Biy Idut Tilky Stariky / Only Old Men are Going to Battle (1973) by Leonid Bykov... 

In the non-fiction cinema the works of the directors of the Kyivnaukfilm (Kyiv Scientific Film) Studio have won the world fame. First of all we are speaking of the works of Felix Sobolev Mova Tvaryn / The Language of the Animals, Sim Krokiv za Gorizont / Seven Steps beyond the Horizon, Derzayte, vy talanovyti! / Dare, You are Talented!, Koly znykayut Baryery / When the Barriers Disappear, which offered humanitarian philosophy to the cinema public of that time. Essentially, the talk was about the hidden possibilities of a human being (Sobolev was sure of their inexhaustibility) and, at the same time, about those limitations which the society is placing on the way to their implementation. The traditional ideas about the human being and the environment of his activity received the new space and time measurements also in the films Nablyzhennya do Istyny / Approaching the Truth by Valeriy Pidpaly, Indiyski Yogi, Khto Vony? / Indian Yogis, Who are They?" by Almar Serebrenykov, Mykola Amosov by Tymur Zoloyev... 
 
The documentary cinema in Ukraine in the times of the USSR remained under the control of its permanent customer - the central party authorities (CPSU). It really developed in the times of the Gorbachev's Reconstruction (1985-1991), when both the proficient directors (Volodymyr Shevchenko, Oleksandr Koval, Viktor Shkurin, Georgiy Shklyarevsky, Murat Mamedov...) and young directors (Serhiy Bukovsky, Oleksandr Rodnyansky, Yuriy Tereshchenko, Roman Shyrman) proposed a new image of Ukraine and of the Ukrainians to the world. Chornobyl. Khronika Vazhkykh Tyzhniv / Chornobyl - The Chronicle of the Hard Weeks, Mi-kro-fon! / Microphone!, Zavtra Svyato / Tomorrow is the Holiday, U Nedilyu Rano... / Early on Sunday..., Sim Slyozyn / Seven Tears, Dim. Ridna Zemlya / Home - The Native Land: these films have shown the folk with a sharp instinct of freedom, with the craving for beauty and spiritual harmony. The folk that is able to overcome the most tragic turns in its history... 
 
In Ukraine, quite a strong and interesting school of animated cinema has formed itself starting from the sixties of the last century. The Disney traditions touched it very little, it was more influenced by the so called Zagreb school and by the own national sources of folklore plasticity. Thus, in the films of the Ukranimafilm Studio the stream of the folk art of humour is felt (for example, in the serial of Volodymyr Dakhno about the adventures of the Dnieper Cossacks), or the comedian source, originating from the essentially city forms of leisure (David Cherkassky and his serials Adventures of Captain Vrungel and The Treasure Island, or director of the younger generation Stepan Koval with his film Ishov tramvay No 9 / The Tram No 9 Goes on). And at the same time, for example, the lyrical and philosophical meditations of Yevhen Syvokon coexist. 
   In the new age of the Ukrainian history, after adoption of the state independence, cinematography has passed through radical changes. At first, the volumes of film productions have grown at the expense of the efforts and interest from the side of the private entrepreneurs. However, in time, when the net of cinema theatres started being ruined (prior to this rapid development of TV and video happened, as well as new demands to the technology and comfort of leisure appeared), the volumes of films production started falling catastrophically. Nevertheless in the nineties and at the beginning of the new century the following directors work interesting and fruitfully: Kira Muratova (Chutlyvy Militsioner / The Sentimental Policeman, 1992, Druhoryadni Lyudi / Second Class Citizens, 2001, Dva v Odnomu / Two in One, 2007), Mykhaylo Illenko (Fuzhou, 1993, Syomy Marshrut / The Seventh Route, 1997), Vilen Novak (Printsessa na Bobakh / Princess on Beans, 1997); talented young directors make their debuts (Oles Sanin, Nadiya Koshman, Roman Bondarchuk). Many efforts have been made in making films based on the historical material, but they did not always have creative success (Bohdan-Zinoviy Khmelnytsky by Mykola Mashchenko, Chorna Rada / The Black Council by Mykola Zaseyev-Rudenko, Molytva za Hetmana Mazepu / A Prayer for Hetman Mazepa by Yuriy Illenko). Gradually the production of TV films is developing (mainly these are serials). Non-fiction cinema has not left its niche and produces films which are often of high art quality (Roztorhnennya dohovoru / Dissolution of a Contract by Murat Mamedov, Nebezpechno Vilna Lyudyna / Dangerously Free Man by Roman Shyrman, Nazvy Svoye Imya / Spell your Name by Serhiy Bukovsky...). 
 
The production of fiction films has started growing from 2005. However, their quantity is not so great as to cover the demands of the films distribution network, where it is already a tradition for the Hollywood films to dominate. The necessary reforms are implemented not very consequential and energetic. The ground for the optimism is the history of the Ukrainian cinema itself which contains many heights of really high level of art.

Serhiy Trymbach