Ukrainian Rhapsody

It is quite shocking that the future film poet and lyricist par excellence, moreover, the nonconformist artist Sergei Parajanov, who would be proscribed by Soviet power, filmed a movie almost entirely in the style of socialist realism, on the edge of sentimental romance or even melodrama in 1961. It seems as if Kalatozov and others in the field of war and relationship themes already pushed the film and socially acceptable boundaries of depicting the life of the Soviet people - Parajanov still adheres to the Stalinist patterns (faithful love takes precedence only after social duty). For example, Chukhray's Clear Skies from the same year complicated the fate of a former prisoner of war with societal prejudices that he had to face upon returning home. Kalatozov's The Cranes Are Flying turned upside down the story of a relentlessly faithful girl in the background for her lover in arms. Parajanov essentially fabricates perfect main characters, with only one supporting character casting a shadow, but serving only a classical differential function to make our heroes shine. They also embody the best qualities of the people - the lessons are clear. The Soviet version of the American Hollywood dream of the main character could have been perfectly credible in 1961 when the USSR sent Gagarin into space, but by wrapping it in an already outdated form, the author made it more of a reminiscence of past times than a hope for the future. "That" Parajanov speaks to the viewer perhaps only in certain dreamlike, symbolic (but dreadfully sentimental) scenes that remotely evoke the lyricism of his later works. (29.10.2015)