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meadow. There is a stark scene of a crowded train full of people clinging to one another for warmth, for it is winter. The train stops and the people open the car door to see what’s outside. They see only soldiers with guns guarding sacks of grain, which black crows are feeding on. Dead bodies lie in the mud all around. The people close the train car door, as the train moves on. Mr. Yanchuk’s black and white scenes (which domi nate most of the film) relay the fear and helplessness of the Katrannyk family, and those people in the villages, who were forced by Communist party officials to give up their wheat, livestock and anything else they owned. Hunger has no mercy, and soon Mykola (played by Kostyk Kazymyrenko), Odarka and Myron’s older son, dies of hunger. "Am I going to die soon?” he asks his parents, seconds before his eyes close forever. Winter has wrapped a cold blanket around Ukraine, and the people are forced to desperate measures in order to survive. Mr. Yanchuk uses color flashbacks at times, to show what life was like for the Katrannyks and other villagers before collectivization. But then we are suddenly brought back to black and white reality, where even incidents of cannibalism are shown. The Katrannyks are under constant surveillance by the local Communist apparatchiks. Somehow it is re vealed that Myron and Odarka are hiding the gold church chalice in their barn — the villagers’ only symbol of their ruined church. Myron is taken away to the local Com munist headquarters and is tortured, while his wife and youngest son go to the city to pawn some jewelry for flour. In the meantime a neighbor sneaks into their house in the village and takes Olenka (their daughter) who is lying in bed, dying of starvation. The only Katrannyk survivors now are Odarka, Myron and little Andrijko. The villagers try a disastrous raid on the heavily guarded mill where the confiscated grain is stored. As the villagers get closer crying out “give us food, we are hungry!” , they are shot down at point blank range. Myron is one of those shot. The camera focuses in on the men’s desperate, pained expressions and pans the snowy, desolate field where the bodies lie in clumps. Odarka is frantic when she learns her daughter is gone. She goes to the local authorities who bribe her to give them the golden chalice in return for a loaf of bread. Meanwhile she has left Andrijko at home, who decides to search for his mother. The camera follows him through the village and through the woods, calling out ’’Mommy, mommy!” He remembers his family running happily through the wheat fields in a color flashback. He realizes he is all alone. While he is desperately searching for his mother, Odarka comes home with the precious loaf of bread and dies desperately clutching it. It is springtime and somehow, even though he is skinny and weak, Andrijko is alive. His father Myron is thrown and burned in a fiery pit along with other dead, and the film ’s most wrenching scene is when he opens his eyes in the pit, surrounded by death and fire, and finally closes them — giving in to death. Famine-33 is a film which shows how Stalin’s forced collectivization ripped apart the individual, the family unit and the entire country. It is a historical tragedy that will tear at your heart no matter what your nationality. A young boy crying out in horror at the sight of a famine victim. 20 ’НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ЛЮТИЙ 1994 Видання C оюзу Українок A мерики - перевидано в електронному форматі в 2012 році . A рхів C У A - Ню Йорк , Н . Й . C Ш A.
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