Dovzhenko’s most audacious film combines ancient folklore with modern events in ranging over many centuries of Ukrainian history with a political aim of obliquely linking modern revolutionary Ukraine with its distant past. For Dovzhenko the fresco-like narrative was what he described as ‘a catalogue of my creative possibilities’. The four part structure with a strange quest for treasure at its centre, incorporates a series of bracketing devices to enclose such eccentric episodes as those involving a vampire-like monk, midsummer rituals on the river and a toytown battle. Also available on 16mm.
Credits: Director, Alexander Dovzhenko ; writer, Mikhail Johansen, Yuri Yurtik ; photography, Boris Zavelev.
Cast: Mikola Nademsky, Semyon Svashenko, Alexander Podorozhny.
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How to watch
Collection
In ACMI's collection
Credits
Collection metadata
ACMI Identifier
F000029
Languages
English
No spoken word
Subject categories
Experimental → Experimental films - Soviet Union
Fantasy & Science Fiction → Fantasy
Sound/audio
Sound
Colour
Black and White
Holdings
35mm film; Limited Access Print (Section 2)