Zvenigora

Full review on my blog max4movies: Zvenigora is a Soviet silent black and white drama about a mysterious old man who spends centuries to find a legendary treasure buried in the middle of the Ukraine. The movie is essentially an epic fictionalized retelling of the country's history. Using recurring characters, who should be seen as symbols or embodied ideologies, several historical struggles are retold (e.g., the invasion of the Poles in the 18th century or the October Revolution in 1917). However, as there is no real plot to tie the several episodes together, the movie all too often feels fragmented and disjointed. Together with the symbolic dialogues and that at least some basic knowledge of Ukrainian and/or Soviet history is needed to understand certain scenes, the overall movie alienates many viewers. And while the production values and the cinematography are often impressive and the mix of historical events and surreal elements is ambitious, Zvenigora falls short in presenting a coherent journey.

Zvenigora is, in terms of narrative and content, one of the most remarkable avant-garde films of an exuberantly experimental period. The film uses the central construct of a legend regarding treasure buried in Mount Zvenigora to build a montage of scenes praising Ukrainian industrialisation, attacking the European bourgeoisie, celebrating the beauty of the Ukrainian steppe and re-telling ancient myths.

The narrative is built upon Modernist lines, disregarding the traditional, novelistic storytelling techniques and instead using abrupt shifts in time and using the constructive devices of avant-garde poets such as Blok, Bely and Mayakovsky to create a picture of modern Ukraine that pushes in several directions at once.

There are some incredibly striking tableaux that require the viewers to create a structure for themselves (such as the Bolshevik soldier directing his own execution) although the climax does draw the preceding events together, combining the dialectical threads of modern industry and the old man's myth together in two exhilarating scenes.

The cinematography is fascinating - elements of the style of Eisenstein, Pudovkin, Protazanov and Kuleshov are recognisable, yet Zvenigora seems completely different to any of them. The juxtaposition of rapid montages, swift city tours and slow, poetic journeys around the countryside is powerful, and the mythical scenes, although winding, are beautifully realised with a dreamlike quality to them.

Zvenigora is not Dovzhenko's masterpiece, if only because his Earth (1930) is one of the greatest Russian films ever made. However, it is highly recommended, although if you are new to Russian film of the period it is probably not the best place to start.

To read a little of the background of the film, it's clear that 'Zvenigora' is in part a quasi-allegorical reflection of Ukrainian history; one quite gathers that something is lost in the experience of watching for any viewer who lacks that knowledge and perspective. Just as much so if not more than this, however, the feature is also unmistakably fantastical in the story it has to tell - and with imaginative details in makeup, costume design, editing, and other elements, fantastical as well in how it tells that story. Where filmmaker Alexander Dovzhenko's other works can be slightly challenging for the unmistakable feel of an art film that they bear, and the occasional lack of total comportment between shots, scenes, intertitles, and story beats, this is also true to no small extent for the slant that 'Zvenigora' carries. Each subsequent moment does work to build a cohesive whole, yet in a way that refuses the merest tinge of plainspoken directness.

With all that said - whatever one's opinion of his body of work, there also can be no doubt that Dovzhenko is an artist with fine mastery of his craft. There are many marvelously arranged shots and scenes in this picture, rich with detail and positively thrumming with vibrant life. The director's shot composition, and his guidance of the cast, weave wonders before our eyes, a tapestry of unexpected heart and soul that defies the presentation that may immediately come off as disjointed. At times hard to parse, or downright flummoxing, it's in no small part a dazzling and even bewitching view.

Now, in fairness, when considering 'Zvenigora' as a whole, there's something to be said for the fact that audiences who aren't specially attuned to the wavelength Dovzhenko was operating on - the context of Ukrainian culture and history - may be put out, or a bit lost. I think it's reasonable to argue that a film which can't be comprehended and appreciated of its own accord across time and in different places fails to be a total success regardless of its merit otherwise. If an art film can sometimes be perceived by those who don't wholly "get it" as "much sound and fury, signifying nothing," certainly a feature that relies in at least some way on spectators' foreknowledge may have much the same sense about it. Still, once more - given the abstruse, whimsical concept on hand, I also think it's within reason to think 'Zvenigora' may prove a bit of a labor even for those who would share Dovzhenko's grasp and insight.

And, at length, formidable as the viewing experience may be, the truth remains that the skill poured into the construction of the piece is outstanding. It's so admirable that I rather think the strengths of the movie outweigh its faults - much to take in, some aspects perhaps not completely digestible, but worthy and enriching all the same as a slice of past cinema. So much splendid effort and care went into making 'Zvenigora' a robust, engrossing picture, and whether the responsibility for the challenge of watching falls to Dovzhenko or to each individual viewer, the value verily exceeds the vexation. It's a curiosity, and a task, and definitely not for all comers. Yet for anyone receptive to the more complex and enigmatic side of film, 'Zvenigora' is ultimately a terrific title that's well worth checking out.

Looking at the few reviews I've read, I'd like to strike a balance. I'd just bought the recently issued 3 film boxed set of Dovzhenko's War Trilogy, of which, this is the start. I bought the set as it was an absolute bargain, making it little more than the fairly well-known 'Earth' that I'd heard about and wanted to see.

Firstly, I took 'cinematic poetry' to be just that, images and scenes that evoked a story rather than simply reciting it in the usual way. Thus heavy symbolism plays a huge part and I have to disagree with those that say one has to know the subject to appreciate it. I use that word, 'appreciate' rather than 'understand' and it is the very nature of the genre here, known as 'avant-garde' that further takes into realms of fantasy, or, pretentious waffle, if that's how you take it.

Avant-garde is not my favourite genre either but when you consider that this is still the Silent Era - normality would be having a fixed camera, on a studio set and the actors moving around in front of it, in all but the most expensive and adventurous productions. The Russians, at this point, as well some notable German film-makers were doing much more and experimenting with double exposures, cutting, fading, all-sorts, simply to extend both the boundaries of their imagination and cinematic technology.

Of course, film has moved on an awfully long way and so has people's entertainment. These moving images are both historical; a recreated scenario now wouldn't anywhere near the same authenticity - and human. As in stills photography of those days, it is capturing people and their lives that would have seemed so special and fascinating, marrying that up with story-telling would take longer as both film-makers and the public got used to this exciting, new medium. Marx unashamedly exploited artists of all kinds for propaganda purposes and these have, understandably, been seen in a bad light in the West, but thank goodness now, we are finally seeing them for what they are, not were - pioneering and hugely influential.

I'm no historian or film expert and in effect, I haven't really reviewed the title itself but hopefully cast a light on it as a subject. However, I would say that the Mr Bongo reproduction, from the restored print is very good, with hardly a blemish and features a new(?) stereo orchestral score.

With Eisenstein - scientist of film, scholar - it was about synthesized image that opened eyes with conflict of the individual parts. It was a studied thing, architectural. This, on the other hand, is what they were fond of calling back then a 'cinematic poem'. So, yes, the stanza is evocative of soul, the rhythm seductive with earthly lyricism; you can see how all this is later revitalized again into poetry with Tarkovsky.

Yet even though the heart is old world, dwelled by spiritual yearnings about the past and rural pageantry - the protagonist is an old man who escorts us through legend or memory - the eye is unerringly modern; it sees in ways that, now with hindsight, we can recognize as distinctly cinematic and only possible with the camera.

So an old battle is diffused with dreamlike ambiance, reconstructed mechanically by actors moving like tinker-toys, but modern life is dazzling where shown; dynamic, disorienting. There are some amazing shots of electric city night humming with motion that I will keep with me. It is ultimately about these two worlds briefly coexisting in the same frame, one rushing against the other, clashing or making way for the locomotion forwards.

Oh, there is the brief forray into civil war, and the brave, statuesque Red officer who must order his own firing squad. But elsewhere the Reds are shown to flee a village in defeat. The politics are ambivalent, mere footnote in the larger flow and pull.