Bitter Harvest

Everyone knows about the Holocaust but few have even heard the word Holodomor. It means 'death by starvation' and it refers to the Ukrainian mass famine deliberately engineered by Joseph Stalin during 1932-33. Scholars label it as genocide and estimate between 7 and 10 million deaths were directly linked to Stalin's policy of de-populating the Ukraine. More accurate numbers are not available because long-standing Russian secrecy has only recently eased enough for the story to be told. The film Bitter Harvest (2017) is the first feature movie to tell this story using a dramatized romance that attempts to humanise a story of inhumanity.

Set in 1930s Ukraine, the story commences with two young childhood sweethearts in the film's only joyful moments. It quickly moves to Joseph Stalin ordering a mass collectivisation program to confiscate the Ukrainian harvests so he could feed his armies. Most chillingly, he commandeers the grain seeds so famine was not only unavoidable but planned. As their village faces an impending catastrophe, the now grown-up young lovers, aspiring artist Yuri (Max Irons) and his betrothed Natalka (Samantha Barks), must separate as he goes off to join the anti-Bolsheviks in Kiev while she remains to care for her ailing mother. Yuri believes in the power of painting and music to tell the world what is happening but his art teachers in Kiev force him to use art for revolutionary propaganda. As Stalin's forces deplete Ukraine's rural food-stock, villagers are accused of hiding grain and seed and failing to support the revolution. Wherever food is not surrendered there are mass executions in front of mass graves, while others starve to death in their homes and on the streets. Yuri is captured and tortured, but escapes to be re-united with Natalka and they eventually flee to Poland.

The detail of this love story pales against the bigger narrative of Stalinist atrocities. While it is a conventional cinematic device to convey a big story through a small lens, the relationship between the two is critical. The two stories of this film are out of balance and unevenly directed. The attempt to create an epic love story diminishes the magnitude of the Holodomor and almost glosses over the scale of its horrors. While the cinematography is excellent throughout, the acting is wooden, melodramatic, and lacks authenticity. The clean-faced good looks of the dual protagonists form a jarring contrast with the caricatures of the Stalinist scar-faced ogres who are depicted as pure evil. Turning archival images of starved bodies on streets and decimated corpses in mass graves into background props to tell a love story feels disrespectful. The film's lack of nuance and simplicity of narrative is a lost opportunity for insight into this dark episode of history.

It is difficult to be critical of a film that deals with such important subject matter. In terms of the need for the bigger story to be told, this film should be rated highly but as cinema it is seriously flawed. On balance, the one and three-quarter hour investment to see this film is worth the time as it is the only available narrative film of life at the time of the Holodomor. As such, it is educational cinema that helps us understand contemporary Russian-Ukraine politics. However, the shelf-life of this film will be determined only by the time it takes for a better film to be produced.

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.

We looked forward to viewing this movie at the Ukrainian festival at our local theatre.

One big mistake though, didn't properly check the movie background - it is pretty much an English movie, not Ukrainian.

The main publicity focus in advance was on the Russian government induced famine in the Ukraine against the background of a love story.

In reality the movie tries to cover too many of the parallel social and political changes in the Soviet state of the 1920's and 30's, such that almost none would be clear to the average viewer. Including the internal power struggles within the communist regime.

This broad spectrum tips over in to the relationship between the two young lovers who appear almost wooden at times as they flit in and out of the narrative.

A serious and little known subject doesn't get its dues here regrettably. The film tries hard but lacks the focus and cultural nuances that may come from a locally made film.

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.