Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Lights of a never forgotten movie, 1 Dec 2005
I had seen this movie at the theatres 38 years ago. I always remembered it as an extraordinary masterpiece, very impressive visually and with emotive music. I have recently got a copy and I watched it again, and my reactions and opinions still remain the same.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Won Six International Film Festival Awards--depiction of Hutsul culture should be in libraries, public & personal, worldwide, 20 Jul 2008
Good news/bad news. The good news is that Amazon.co.uk is selling a truly exceptional DVD entitled, `Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors,' which is based on a novel by Ukrainian author Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky (1864-1913).
Journey into the past and experience the world-renowned Ukrainian Hutsul folklore and folkways that encyclopedists, historians, and authors depict by way of words and the film gives credence to via imagery, moods, symbolism, and sounds. Avenues you'll travel will branch off, giving you exposure to artistic embroideries, folk music, folk songs, ornate costumes, religious ceremonies, and traditional rituals (such as a traditional Hutsul wedding and a traditional Hutsul burial), along the way.
Folklife comes alive as you float down a river in a unique wooden raft, partake in Christmas festivities, encounter a sorcerer, and lots more--all against a backdrop of the magnificent Ukrainian Carpathian Mountains, where trees' shadows silhouette straight as they stretch for the stars and for the skies, where horses dress in tassels as they meander meadows and highlands, where Hutsuls converse across Carpathian Mountains via trembitas--and, where Ivan cannot forget his true love.
`Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors' is not your typical feel-good film; it's for the connoisseur of fine arts. If you want your senses stimulated, your imagination enlivened, and your knowledge of Hutsul culture expanded, then, this is the film for you!
Film director, Sergei Parajanov, was an Armenian born in Georgia. He insisted on filming `Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors' in the Ukrainian language, and refused to dub it into Russian. In his lifetime, he was persecuted by the Soviets, was arrested several times, spent years in prison, and his subsequent works were banned.
`Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors,' which was later renamed Wild Horses of Fire for most foreign distributions, was Parajanov's first major work, and earned him international acclaim for its rich use of color and costume. `Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors' won six international film festival awards: London, San Francisco, Mar del Plata, New York, Montreal, and Thessaloniki.
The bad news is that inaccuracies exist. As accurately noted by both Dr. Luba and GR in their reviews on Amazon.com in the USA, `Russian regional history' should be changed to read `Ukrainian regional history.' Update: This has now been changed to good news: the copy now reads `Ukrainian regional history.'
Also, bad news for UK readers is that you may only purchase one copy of this DVD, and, the fact that this DVD has a `Region 1 encoding (requires a North American or multi-region DVD player and NTSC compatible TV).' This shortcoming can be overcome, however--if you make a one-time purchase/investment; after that, you'll be able to play/enjoy this and other Region 1 DVDs.
Update: Changed from bad news to good news (August 13, 2008), in the Update Product Info section, Ukrainian has been added alphabetically to the permanent list of languages as a language in the drop-down menu.
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors' is a must see/must own DVD--at the very least, it should appear worldwide on library shelves and in personal collections. This DVD definitely deserves 5-stars!--Mandrivnyk, Arlington Heights, IL, USA.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of World Cinema's few masterpieces, 22 Aug 2008
The first major movie by the Georgian-born Armenian director Sergei Paradjanov (he has made some movies before that few people have seen, and they are apparently in the conventional Soviet style). This is set in a village in Western Ukraine, in the forested Carphatian Mountains, among the Hutsul ethnic group. The movie has a great opening, as a man is killed by a falling tree over a snow-covered mountain, with a Point of View shot from the top of the tree. After that, you get unadulterated Paradjanov, its frantic mixture of ethnography, folklore, religion, odd camera movements, music, dance, color. Among all this, a sort of plot emerges, with the story of the crazy love between Ivan and Marichka, a couple belonging to feuding families, and of Ivan's life and marriage with another woman called Palagna after Marichka's tragic death. The era in which the action takes place is never determined, though one suspects we are some centuries ago. One can argue endlessly whether this film is better than his next effort, the masterpiece The Color of Pomegranates (also known as Sayat Nova), but this supremely strange and moving movie is very much a masterpiece of world cinema.
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