A beautiful and very significant film in cinema and Ukrainian history! Highly recommended.
We are offering several items that explore and celebrate Ukrainian history, culture and heritage following the announcement that Todestrieb Records & Nightbirds Records will soon be releasing all Drudkh albums on cassette.
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors was the first major work by the filmmaker Sergei Parajadnov. Although acclaimed internationally, Paradjanov's visionary and poetic oeuvre was regarded as subversive by the Soviet authorities and he was frequently banned from filmmaking and imprisoned. Set within a Gutsul (Hutsul) community in the Ukranian Carpathian mountains, this visually stunning and richly detailed tale of a young man who yearns for a lost love is a gloriously inventive and exuberant film, mixing folklore, sorcery and religious symbolism, which brought Paradjanov to prominence and won numerous awards.
Review
...Parajanov has a genuine gift. He has the kind of heedless energy you glimpse in some of the early work of Martin Scorsese, pounding camerawork so filled with itself it can hardly contain the story. And for anyone who's interested in the Ukrainian culture and customs of perhaps a century ago, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a treasure, a repository of costumes, masks, superstitions and beliefs, courtship customs and the sufferings of short lives with too much work in them. - Roger Ebert 5/5
