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d Р гщ е г fo r th e Hetman by Martha Bohachevsky Chomiak The same filmmaker that made the universally acclaimed Shadows o f Forgotten Ancestors, Ilyenko, made this blockbuster of a movie. It stars Bohdan Stupka, a distinguished Ukrainian actor. The topic of the film is Hetman Ivan Mazepa, whose dramatic de feat at the hands of Peter I, the founder of the Russian Empire (as contrasted with the Kingdom of Muscovy), reverberated in the further incorporation of Ukraine into the Russian administrative structure. The Russian Tsar declared Mazepa a traitor; the Russian Orthodox Church not only excommunicated Mazepa, but also repeated the excommunication periodically in its churches in Ukraine until the late 1990's. Mazepa is still viewed as a traitor by most Russians, while most Ukrainians know little of the Hetman. Ilyenko's film, two years in production, made a big stir even before it was first shown, at the Berlin Festival. It was widely discussed in Ukraine and abroad. The Russian government, objecting to the por trayal of Peter I, suggested that Russian theaters not order the film. Actually, compared to the historically documented activities of the real Peter, Ilyenko's por trayal is quite mild. A Prayer fo r Mazepa is a surrealistic poem, and it reflects all the pain and anguish Ilyenko, who was bom in Siberia, feels towards Ukraine, its hero ism, its stupidity, its Gogolian macabre humor, its un bridled expansiveness. It is packed with layers of ap proaches, a mask opening another mask, a young face replacing an old one, the living as the dead and the dead living. Towards the end of the film, one of the ancient Scythian stone women, the Steppe Baba, comes to life, an assurance that come what may be and what had been, the land, the people, and Ukraine itself, will live on. Confused? That is the trouble with the film. It is at least five films in one, none fully clear and all requiring an audience that knows not only the story of Mazepa but the nuances of Ukrainian culture as well. It demands a careful audience, quick to catch the hidden irony, the cry of the heart beneath the joker's painted face. At its most primitive level it is a story of the unrequited love of Motria Kochubei's mother for Mazepa. Towards the end of the film, in a series of gratuitously vulgar overcharged erotic scenes, it is possible to make an argument that it was the older Ko- chubeikha who brought about the fall of Mazepa. The film also deteriorates into a "cult of personality" of Stupka, who stretches the dead Mazepa into a trickster- prankster, winking into eternity as his spirit marches on. The historic Mazepa is of course totally different, but, in the film, the name of Mazepa deteriorates into vaudeville characters that at one point become a woman. Mercifully, Ilyenko did not expand into that interpretation. The film is also, in part, a great Hollywood- style blockbuster. Lots of battle scenes, lots of steppe, lots of Tartars leading half-naked pale beauties through the scorching land under willow cages. Poles, Tartars, rival Cossack bands dash and clash at a breathtaking pace across the screen. Young Mazepa is tarred and feathered, seduced and saved, and his white horse breezes back and forth, either carrying a real Mazepa or his effigy. The film is strongest when it fuses flashback and a gory realistic event, like the destruction of Ba- turyn. The city was literally wiped out at the order of the Russian Tsar; the whole population, from infant to the senile, tortured; and the mangled bodies, many crucified, sent down the Seym River as warning to others. Mazepa and Kochubei wander in the nightmar ish scenes. Unlike Lidice, the Czech village wiped out by the Nazis, Baturyn remains an historical enigma. Its fate is little known even within Ukraine. The presentation of the battle of Poltava is brilliant. It is a baroque still life, piles of food on a long table. Mazepa lectures Peter, while the armies clash before them. Young Charles XII hobbles on his wounded foot. This is "creative theatre" at its best. Unfortunately, that level is not sustained through the three-hour long film. Potentially, the film is most interesting when presented as baroque puppet theatre. That venue gives Ilyenko a chance to expound on his cry for "many Ukraines," the lament that arises when we see one hetman battling another, one power using part of Ukraine through another. The baroque spirals into the grotesque as Mazepa watches the preparations for his funeral, looking over the deaths he has caused and the deaths he has failed to prevent. The action foreshad ows future tortures of those who call themselves Mazepa. Here we see a hint of the real role Mazepa will play, not as a trickster, but as a symbol. Some of the Ukrainian commentators on the film read the film as an allegory for the contemporary situation in Ukraine, rather than as historical epic. On the symbolic level all these strands are a bit too much for the audience, especially an audience unprepared for the complexity of the subject. For the non-Ukrainian audience - actually, even for most Ukrainians - the film needs historic notes, some inter pretation, and more editing. For students of culture, for film critics, for anyone interested in Ukrainian history and how Ukrainian artists interpret it, Prayer is a mine of material. 12 “НАШЕ ЖИТТЯ”, ГРУДЕНЬ 2002 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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