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look cleaner and warmer in the snow. Whole books of thoughts, scores of the saddest music were concealed in the wrinkles around her eyes. Who was she? She was our dead mother. Notebooks (1942) Dovzhenko cannot help but admire how women are capable of transcending their own pain and concetrat- ing their efforts to value lives that can do more than they. The most striking example is recorded in the Notebooks of 1941 where women ask thier own soldiers to shoot at them so that can be saved and carry on with their mandate: [The enemy soldiers].... covered their infamous advance with our people — old men, women and children. Our machine guns fell silent. Then in a terrible silence women’s voices...: “Shoot at us! Don’t spare us!... Save youselves and our Ukraine, our martyred Mother!” Note books (1941) A second type of woman joins the Mother in her fight for life: the Wife. She is strong and productive; therefore the enemy will use her as a slave. What is her lot? The inevitable is rape. Dovzhenko records many scenes of rape. She was resisting with her last ounce of strenght. She was almost naked. She was under the rapist, and still he couldn’t take her. Then he shot her in the head with his pistol and raped her dead body. Notebooks (1941) ... By evening Sanya's hair has turned gray. She lies naked on her torn clothes, wet bathed in a cold sweat, looking like a marble statue on her own gravestone. She thinks she is dead. Notebooks (1942) Another most impressively solemn frame describes women by the Dnipro River. In most artistic produc tions, water has traditionally been associated with life. Here the women are confronted with death. “Near Zapo- rizhya [they] sent naked women to the Dnipro for water so that our side wouldn’t shoot. “Notebooks (1941) In other notes the filmmaker captures scenes where women are made to entertain the invaders; in defiance, they sing a Spring song that proclaims rebirth and hope: “All the mountains are turning green.” Notebooks (1942) Some women dare the enemy with words that will resound for centuries as a curse; words that only an invincible spirit could have uttered: “Do you call this war? It’s not war; it’s the immorality and decline of your people. Shoot me, hang me, the devil take you!” N ote books (1942) A third woman, the Sister (or Beloved), joins the Wife and the Mother. She will be deported to enemy land. With her, we enter the world of Dovzhenko the poet. Inspired by the landscape, the fauna, the flora and Ukrainian folk songs, he develops his own metaphor to describe the deportation. Fifty thousand of our girls and young women have been deported ... for agricultural work and for servicing slave laborers from France, Italy, and other occupied coun tries in bordellos. I wept when I read this. The trains were brimfull with our slave girls. They traveled the lenght of Ukraine day and night...and long keys of cranes called in the night sky... Notebooks (1942) For Dovzhenko the artist and the poet, this Woman is “the blooming flower of the land;” she embodies the Spring; she perfumes the air; her smile brings joy and hope. How can she remain unprotected? What will happen to her? Dovzhenko enters the mind of the Father or Brother who wonders whether she will be safe. Will she be like Kravchyna’s daughter taken into captivity, raped and mutilated? And, if found again, what will they say to her? Dovzhenko composes a moving dialogue between Father and Daughter during which he cares for her as for a wilted plant he must bring back to life. — “They have humiliated me.” — “My dear, all war is humiliation.” — “I am disgusting and dirty.” — “You are beautiful, like this shattered church. Like these ruins. They are disgusting and beautiful at the same time.” — “I am mutilated.” — “The whole country is mutilated. How are you better?” [...] — "Who will take me now?” — "If no one takes you, it will only be because there’s no one left.” Notebooks (1945) Dovzhenko ventures to examine the young girl’s reaction to war and he reserves one of the most beauti ful pages of his Notebooks to the character of Sanya, the girl who begs the soldier “to take her and deprive her of her virginity.” He is not a hero. In fact, he is retreating! But she wants him regardless because she anticipates that her beauty will be "wasted” anyway in the hands of the invaders. The filmmaker describes the camera shots. Describe the bed. how she undressed. How she smelled of lovage. How they were wonder-struck with each other. How they gazed at each other with eyes wide open the entire night. How they found something strange and enchanting in each other, how their timidity passed, how they both felt love, pride and gentle gratitude. At times it .seemed to them that they had known each other since childhood... This love scene between two strangers is filled with emotion and tears. These are the tears of joy; the souls are pure and their gift of themselves is holy as they par ticipate in the mystery of life. The last words exchanged at the end of their brief encounter provide the second 16 ’’НАШЕ Ж ИТТЯ”, ТРАВЕНЬ 1996 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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