The History & The Drama of Director Alexander Dovzhenko

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Parent Category: Film and the Arts

Category: Reviews

Published on Sunday, 17 September 2017 09:00

Written by Jack Angstreich

 The Enchanted Desna

A landmark event for New York cinephiles this summer took place at the Museum of the Moving Image on the last weekend of August: a presentation of the extraordinary Ukrainian trilogy of Yulia Solntseva, the widow of Alexander Dovzhenko, one of the greatest directors in the history of cinema.

Solntseva had been a significant actress in Soviet film, appearing several times in films by her husband. At his death in 1958, he left three unproduced screenplays that she proceeded to realize, displaying a remarkable command of the medium, beginning with Poem of an Inland Sea from 1958, which was screened in 35-millimeter.

Especially exciting, however, was the glorious presentation of the other two works in the trilogy, which were both screened in excellent 70-millimeter color prints with innovative stereophonic, magnetic soundtracks, possibly for the first time in New York. These quasi-propaganda films transcend Stalinist aesthetics and feature elaborate—sometimes delirious—crane and tracking shots—with even a few handheld shots— dynamic editing, arresting superimpositions, dream and fantasy sequences, and other notable elements.

The Chronicle of the Flaming Years from 1961, which was the first 70-millimeter production in the Soviet Union, dramatizes the Nazi invasion of the Ukraine during the second World War, centering on the experiences of Ivan Orlyuk, an extremely appealing young soldier. The episodic narrative is unforgettable for its stunning, epic battle scenes.

Even more amazing was The Enchanted Desna, a sometimes delirious, lyrical, magical realist adaptation of autobiographical writings by Dovzhenko, and ranked by Jean-Luc Godard as the best film of 1965. The narrative oscillates between the protagonist's Ukrainian childhood around the turn of the century, his time as an officer in the Red Army during World War II, and the modern day of magnificent Soviet construction. The screenings of this dazzling, indescribable work were a capstone to one of the pinnacles of New York film exhibition of recent years.

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