[actual film is in color]
A contagious kind of exuberance charges Parajanov's first major work so ferociously and rich in religious fervor that it transforms a crude, cartoonishly simple romantic tragedy into a vortex of hyperkineticism, lyrical beauty, and drunken worship. I'm not sure how this film would play on a TV screen, but in the 'theatre' it's a truly sweeping and nearly physical event. There may not be a single repeated shot in the whole film (in a good way!), but consistency is found in the repeated low angle shots, causing characters to waver and nearly loooooooom over the audience.
Ivan and Marichka first exchange pleasantries (a slap from former to latter) immediately following the death of the boy's father at the hands of the girls'. Marichka is wealthy and Ivan is not, and apparently they live in a lawless frontier without much in the way of court systems, so Ivan's father's murderer is fairly overlooked (as will be others). But $ doesn't matter much to each child and after getting slightly familiar the two set off on a playfully erotic nude bathing excursion in the woods. It's cute and very underage and marks one of many shockingly unexpected segues, this time into the couples' early adulthood, at which point Ivan sets off to find his fortune.
But all does not turn out as happily as planned and I was a bit disappointed by the all-too-early exit of Marichka's naive maiden. Best remembered during a lengthy wavering zoom-in on her tear and rain-soaked face following a passionate goodbye to Ivan, Marich's childish devotion keeps things in high spirits. Once absent, the mood is a bit more dour, but no less splattered and juiced.
An early faded red tone of the film gives way to more naturalistic hues later on (purposefully or time-ravagedly I cannot say), which I found a bit disappointing again. But still the playground swing-informed cinematographic aesthetic never wanes, dropping us into severely canted angles at one moment, skewed geometric landscapes, striking close-ups, or flat theatrical medium shots at any possible other.
There's no end to style in this film and more than surface-level window dressing for an otherwise simplistic plot, the camera movement and bravado grants a hallucinatory and devotional urgency to the material. If the showy shooting exceeds the romantic cliches, it perfectly matches director Parajanov's great enthusiasm for Pagan and Christian folklore, as elaborated in several bawdy rituals.
Besides the active camera, Shadows' frequent and irreverent holy rites filled with dance, eery song, and eerier costume lend the primary narrative thread a strong undercurrent of fable. Far less sober than the title might imply, the film freaks like the Monty Python crew (circa Holy Grail) getting drunk in the folk art masks section of the natural history museum and reenacting a skeletal version of Romeo and Juliet with inspiration from Andrei Rublev as interpreted by Seijun Suzuki's visual schizophrenia.
My expectations were REALLY high for this one after the first 20 minutes or so, and things feel slightly predictable and linear by the end, but for the most part this is some out out singular genius stuff.
Apparently the director made one more stone-cold masterpiece a few years later and then alternated the remainder of his career with stints in the Soviet GULAG.
Another reason to appreciate the wealth of opportunity and freedom of expression provided by American capitalism, eh comrade?
[Gene Siskel Film Center: Chicago]
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