ABOUT THE SHADOWS OF OUR FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS

Adapting Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky’s 1911 novel, Sergei Parajanov created a masterpiece unrivalled even to this day. Like the novel, he was inspired by the traditional culture and folklore of the Hutsul people of the Carpathian Mountains, infusing it with symbolic and impressionistic colour, sound and fury. His determination to tell the story this way – eschewing the socialist realism mandated by the communist government – landed him in a Soviet gulag, branded a dissident. Despite this, as Roger Ebert noted in his 1978 review, the film won “almost every award in sight on the 1964 film festival circuit” (and even inspired Carl Sagan, whose book with Ann Druyan is named after the film). Yuri Ilyenko’s bombastic cinematography underscores the film’s allegorical, surreal and technically experimental flourishes, all in service of Parajanov’s aim to challenge the audience’s understanding of screen-based storytelling... http://miff.com.au/program/film/shadows-of-our-forgotten-ancestors