Holodomor - Bittere Ernte

I have heard Holocaust, but not Holodomor. Thanks to this film. This is a piece of history. A bitter history, that people of the world should know what communism does. It commenced during the end of Tsar era and when Stalin's reign began. The film focused on a young man grew up in a small town, dreaming to be an artist. But suddenly everything has changed once Ukraine struggled to gain its independence from the Soviet Union. From his perspective, his journey through the Unkraine's toughest time had been explained. It had some romance, but overwhelmed by an unending conflict. They had to wait for 60 years, finally to get what they were fighting for.

The music was good. The background score accompanied awesomely throughout the narration. Decent actors and direction. Overall a good film, but I don't know what went wrong for it fail to reach out the people. Maybe the unfamiliar cast. But anyway, this film still did better in Ukraine as expected. From the 30s, slowly faded away from the world's interest in this matter. Mainly the reason could have been the WWII. Otherwise, there's no difference between what had happened here comparing to what nazis did a decade later. Why not, you will surely learn something out of it. So definitely yes, I would recommend it.

7/10

The Holodomor in Ukraine, the genocidal famine planned by Stalin and his commissars that killed millions in 1932-33, was a Soviet policy of forced starvation and is a cruel little known period in the history of the 20th century. Maybe it was too optimistic to try and cover the fall of the Russian czar, WW1, the Bolshevik/Russian revolution, the death of Lenin and the rise of Stalin and the genocidal famine in Ukraine, in 100 minutes. And then make all the horror of that period less terrible with a hopeful love story. Too much horrible history in too little time. However, someone had to try so kudos to the director for that effort. That period of history was deeply cruel and it's hard to imagine how else to make the story palatable. Visually, the movie is terrific. The brutality in some scenes, although no doubt historically accurate, is tough to watch. I thought the local commissar was very effective in his cruelty, and in comparison, the Stalin figure almost seemed like a lightweight. A number of the professional critic reviews sound downright snarky. This isn't an easy move to watch or an easy story to tell. And while there is plenty of room for suggestions of how to improve, it is not a movie of no value as some wrote. The accusations of exaggeration and melodrama are actually bizarre. I think the famine and the horrors of communism, which my parents and grandparents lived through, were no doubt much worse than depicted here.

1930's Ukraine. Genocide through starvation. It was never going to be a pleasant story. It's tough to make a film out of something so one sided and something so horrific. And at times its difficult to sit through. Yes it's violent but we don't see a lot of it up close. It's not gratuitous. It's already dire enough. Yet there's plenty to be depressed about.

The story itself is quite good. Following the journey of one character so we get an overview of what happened in varying parts of Ukraine during this time. And yet it's a stretch. Certain scenarios are just asking us to suspend belief a little too far. Our central figures should have been killed several times over. Knowing this is set within real events (though not of these characters) keeps us involved. But only just.

The problem is with the director. The early scenes are so over-lit it makes you feel like you're watching a Disney TV play. The clichés come thick and fast through the staging and unfortunately some of the dialog too. The direction is heavy handed, falling back on triteness such as blood dripping from a sword stuck in the ground and other lame symbolism.

It's all a bit overblown. The cinematography, the music. They wanted to make a real epic here but even at 100 minutes, it feels overlong and over-baked.

It's horrific to be certain and I wanted to care more but the central story just doesn't grab us the way it should. Terence Stamp adds an element of acting class. Shame that it can't be said for the rest of the cast. For example, Stalin is a caricature. Hours after seeing it, I'm already beginning to forget it. And that's not a bad thing.

An event this huge deserves so much more.

A common myth involving famine is that that it's entirely down to there not being enough food to go around an increasing human population . In other words there's too many people to survive on an essential resource , or "Malthusian catastrophe" to give it its technical term. What is being said is that there's too many people but there's often the innuendo that there's "too many (Insert black , brown or yellow here) people" here. The reality is that there's more than enough food in the world and the problems of food supply lie elsewhere, Don't believe me ? Ask yourself this:if there's more than 7 billion people in the world , more than it has ever been why is it that in the last few years only the Horn of Africa and North Korea have suffered famines ? You see my point ? It's nothing to do with resources and has everything to do with war in North East Africa and state policy in North Korea

BITTER HARVEST tells the story of one of the worst man made disasters in human history , that of the 1930s Soviet famine , most especially the Holodomor experience of the Ukrainians. Make no mistake because the famine was entirely man made where Josef Stalin rescinded Lenin's New Economic Policy ( Lenin and Trotsky's name change for capitalism )and executed or imprisoned everyone who knew anything about farming or engineering. A recipe for disaster in other words

The film itself is far from a disaster but constantly fails to make up its mind as to what it's trying to be. From the opening scene where the lead male and female are introduced as children you think that the film might be going one way only for it to go in a direction that it doesn't need to. It's a little bit love story , a little bit historical epic , a little bit action adventure etc but these segments never join up to a bigger picture , so much so it leads to an ultimately unsatisfying movie. It doesn't help that the goodies and baddies are painted in such broad stereotypical strokes

This is especially annoying where the casting is involved. Tamar Hassan is an actor I know from low budget British hooligan sub-genre films but is something of a revelation as Commissar Sergei but ends up being a rudimentary villain because that's what the screenplay demands and it is the fault of the screenplay . On the other end of the spectrum is up and coming Welsh actor Aneurin Bernard who plays Mykola a multi-layered Marxist and complex character but quickly disappears from the narrative. Things like this draw your attention to the fact that this is a well meaning film but should have been a great film as well as a well meaning one

The Communists starved the Ukrainians under Stalin. The New York Times via Walter Duranty, covered up their crimes. Bitter Harvest is a fictional action- drama based on one man's story that lived through it. Now, finally a movie that is not about Hitler (national socialism) but about the real threat America faces from the left- International socialism ( communism) - still being covered up by the same lying media. Walter Duranty is best known for his stringent denial of the genocide of the Ukrainian people, known as Holodomor. Duranty refused to report on the man-made famine that killed up to twelve million people. Duranty also claimed other journalists who reported the truth of the USSR, such as Malcolm Muggeridge and Gareth Jones, were liars. Muggeridge went on to call Duranty "the greatest liar I have met in journalism." Some of Duranty's most well known lies and falsehoods about Holodomor are: "There is no famine or actual starvation nor is there likely to be." --New York Times, Nov. 15, 1931, page 1 "Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda." --New York Times, August 23, 1933 "Enemies and foreign critics can say what they please. Weaklings and despondents at home may groan under the burden, but the youth and strength of the Russian people is essentially at one with the Kremlin's program, believes it worthwhile and supports it, however hard be the sledding." --New York Times, December 9, 1932, page 6 "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." --New York Times, May 14, 1933, page 18 "There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition." --New York Times, March 31, 1933, page 13 Duranty also admitted privately that the genocide was happening. Bruce S. Thornton wrote: Walter Duranty stands as perhaps the quintessential fellow-traveler, killing news reports of famine and writing that Ukrainians were "healthier and more cheerful" than he had expected, and that markets were overflowing with food—this at the height of Stalin's slaughter of the kulaks.