"With Fire and Sword" depicts Kozak war against Poland (05/23/99)

"With Fire and Sword" depicts Kozak war against Poland

by Yuri Shevchuk

NEW YORK - It would be difficult to cite a relatively recent film about Ukraine, whose characters speak Ukrainian and that has all the essential ingredients of a blockbuster: big names, big budget and big buzz, both national and international.

Such a film has yet to be made in Ukraine. This improbable combination, however, describes a new Polish film "With Fire and Sword" that premiered on March 18 in New York City at the Ziegfeld Theater and is now being shown in the New York metropolitan area and other U.S. cities with large Polish communities.

The film, which depicts the Kozak war led by Hetman Bohdan Khmelnytsky against Poland, promises to become a major event not only in Poland, but also in Ukraine and among Ukrainians.

"I did not try to add anything to [Henryk] Sienkiewicz, I simply read him very carefully," noted Jerzy Hoffman, the Polish director of the film which is based on the novel by the same title.

Yet the impression a Ukrainian cinema-goer is left with after viewing Hoffman's chef-d'oeuvre is exactly the opposite from what the director would have us believe. Those who expect to be treated to a hefty dose of Sienkiewicz's typical anti-Ukrainian stereotypes that "endeared" this Polish author to earlier generations of Ukrainians will most likely be disappointed. Hoffman's supposedly "faithful reading" of the text is in fact a peculiar interpretation by the director who seems hopelessly divided between his love for the Ukrainophobic Sienkiewicz on the one hand, and his fascination with, and personal connection to, Ukraine on the other.

At a press conference after the first screening of the film in New York, Mr. Hoffman spoke about his personal involvement with Ukraine. His late wife was born in Kyiv, he has many friends in the city and over the decades has visited it on different occasions. The movie not only abounds in things Ukrainian but, unlike its literary progenitor, unabashedly celebrates Ukraine in its many manifestations: language, folk song and dance, costume and the legend of Kozakdom. (In this sense, Ukrainians still have to do themselves the credit done them by Jerzy Hoffman).

It is futile to look for historical accuracy, for real historical figures and events chronicled in "With Fire and Sword." The movie brings to mind the words attributed to Alexandre Dumas, the French 19th century novelist much admired by generations of Ukrainian readers: "For me, history is but a nail on which I hang my pictures."

Mr. Hoffman defines his work as the "Polish-Ukrainian version of 'Gone With the Wind,' a story of great passions, of human fates thrown into the tragic whirlpool of a civil war." A young Polish nobleman, Jan Skrzetuski (Michal Zebrowski), traveling to Ukraine to join the court of Prince Jeremi Wisniowiecki (Andrzej Seweryn) meets a beautiful but poor noblewoman, Helena Kurcewiczowna (Izabella Scorupco), and falls in love with her at first sight. Helena, however, has already been promised as a wife to the Ukrainian nobleman Yurko Bohun (Aleksandr Domogarov) who stops at nothing to make sure that the promise is kept. Helena does not love Bohun, she loves Skrzetuski. The two men lock in a bitter rivalry for Kurcewiczowna's hand.

In their pursuit of the precious prize they become directly involved in the epic events of the time of the great Kozak war against the Polish Commonwealth led by Khmelnytsky. Skrzetuski fights on the side of the Polish Commonwealth, and Bohun - if only tangentially - on the side of the Kozak rebels.

The film offers a full menu of attributes obligatory for a historical costume drama: jewels, armor and richly embroidered attire, lavish feasts and fierce fights, mounted chases and marching troops, glorious victories and bloody defeats, spectacular scenery and much more that immediately transport the viewers into the carefully created atmosphere of the time, makes them relish the past that never was.

Yet for all declared disengagement of the film from politics, a Ukrainian American viewer, sensitive toward the Polish-Ukrainian past, will most certainly see politics even where it was not intentional by either Mr. Hoffman or Bohdan Stupka, the renowned Ukrainian actor chosen to play Khmelnytsky, perhaps the most politically loaded character in the production.

From its very inception this film project was destined to become controversial, highly controversial, thanks mainly to its politically charged literary source, Sienkiewicz's novel.

Sienkiewicz, born in 1846, is best known for his vivid historical novels, such as "Quo Vadis?" for which he received the 1905 Nobel Prize in Literature. His popular trilogy "With Fire and Sword" that glorified the Polish struggle for national existence is replete with negative stereotypes of Ukraine and Ukrainians.

Prof. George Grabowicz of Harvard noted: "Sienkiewicz is interesting as a representative of post-Romantic treatment of the subject, which was perhaps the most important for Polish Romanticists. Polish Romanticism begins with interest in Ukraine. For all Polish Romanticists, with the exception of Adam Mickiewicz, this was a very interesting subject. For them Ukraine was an exotic land from which emanated some enigmatic, mysterious and very powerful energy - Kozakdom.

"For Romanticists it was a source of inspiration and, in terms of psycho-analysis, something the Indians call the 'shadow.' Each shadow also has great power and energy. Sienkiewicz demonizes this energy. In his novel it becomes a vision of some dark, unholy energy. His vision is Manichean in nature, i.e., it is an opposition of good and evil. The good is the noblemen's Poland, the evil is the dark, wild Ukrainian Kozak and peasant element."

Despite his claims to the contrary, Mr. Hoffman dramatically departs from Sienkiewicz's depiction of Ukraine. True, some Ukrainians in some scenes, particularly in the Sich, are represented as an unruly and wild mob, about to lynch their own leader. But it is also true that the Kozaks are shown as victorious over the Poles, most of the time. They are not only selfless, brave in battle and fiercely loyal, but also noble. Ukraine finds a whole array of representations in the film: in particular characters - central like Khmelnytsky and Bohun, or peripheral, like the witch Horpyna (Ruslana Pysanka) or the Kozaks; in folk songs and dance; and in breathtaking views of nature. The image of Ukraine is complex and multi-faceted; it cannot be reduced to a single denominator, whether positive or negative.

In Hoffman's "With Fire and Sword," Ukraine and Ukrainians are vivid rather than monochromatic; they are multi-dimensional, eliciting more than one feeling of, say, fascination or dislike.

Yurko Bohun, for example, is a symbol of all-consuming love that borders on the murderous. His desire for Kurcewiczowna blinds him to the point of self-destruction. Nothing else seems to matter. His all-encompassing feeling is his one and only motive. Woe to anyone who dares cross his path - Pole or Ukrainian, nobleman or peasant - his anger is terrifying. He gets his head bloodied on many occasions, but it always stays unbowed. There is definitely something of the "shadow" in Bohun - dark and menacing. Yet there is also something breathtaking and beautiful in his refusal to play by the rules.

Bohun's antithesis is Khmelnytsky. He is a statesman - sly and calculating, resolute and ruthless with the enemy, and ingratiating with an ally. It is emblematic of the film how Mr. Hoffman presents a historical actor so polarizing for the ethnic communities involved. For Ukrainians Khmelnytsky has been a great if tragic person, a metaphor of the almost fulfilled promise of liberty, statehood and national dignity. For Poles he is a traitor motivated by petty vindictiveness; for Jews - a bloodthirsty villain.

"I would be a criminal if I tried to unbury the hatchet of war between Poland and Ukraine," said the Polish director, explaining his philosophy towards making the film. "This would be unconscionable. We all know what the Polish-Ukrainian wars led to. Fortunately, today we are neighbors, two independent nations. On the eve of our entrance to Europe we should think of how to extend each other a friendly hand." And a friendly hand Hoffman does extend. "I had complete artistic license in playing Khmelnytsky," said Mr. Stupka. One can hardly resist the symbolism behind the story of Hoffman's decision to offer the part of Khmelnytsky to Mr. Stupka, perhaps today's most famous Ukrainian actor. Mr. Hoffman met Stupka during commemorative events in 1991 of the Babyn Yar massacre in Kyiv and several years afterwards telephoned him from Warsaw and offered him the role of the Kozak hetman. "It was quite obvious for me that Kozaks should be played by Ukrainian actors,"said Mr. Hoffman. "I had no doubt about that." An invitation to participate in the production was extended also to Ruslana Pysanka, an actress and popular TV personality in Ukraine.

Irrespective of Mr. Hoffman's original intention, "With Fire and Sword" has become the most recent example of Polish-Ukrainian cooperation that promises to benefit Ukrainian cinema simultaneously in a number of aspects - on the level of deeply rooted psychological stereotypes, for example. Generations of Ukrainians have persistently been fed the idea of their inherent cultural inferiority. One of the "packagings" of this idea was that Ukrainian culture is somehow insufficient without Russian culture. This self-perception took deep root in the national psyche. It sometimes takes another nation to reveal the treasures of the oppressed culture. It takes a Jerzy Hoffman to show Ukrainians, and incidentally the rest of the world, what fine actors they have, and Mr. Stupka is just one example. Whether or not "With Fire and Sword" will promote Ukrainian culture and language in Ukraine remains to be seen. But it has already started doing so in Poland and elsewhere where it is being shown.

At the press conference on the occasion of film's first screening in New York, production team members spoke quite openly of their ambitions. The film is going to be promoted for an Oscar nomination in the foreign language category. It is now being shown beyond the selected program at the world's most prestigious film festival at Cannes; Mr. Stupka flew to Cannes to participate in the presentation.

By the standards of today's commercial success, "With Fire and Sword" has more than enough prerequisites to claim recognition beyond Poland. The film boasts the biggest budget in the history of Polish motion pictures - a mind-boggling $8 million. In Poland it proved a bigger box-office hit than "Titanic." As of today the three-hour movie has been seen by more than 6 million spectators, or almost every fifth Pole. This alone indicates a huge favorable PR campaign for Ukraine and Ukrainian culture in Poland. Mr. Stupka said the film's favorable impact was already visible during his latest visit to Poland when he appeared in the play "Letters of a Madman." Many people came from as far as Warsaw (he performed in the eastern part of the country) just to see the actor who had played Khmelnytsky in this blockbuster.

The other aspect of the film's benefit to Ukrainian cinema is purely pragmatic. The production history of Mr. Hoffman's movie might show the moribund Ukrainian cinema the path of salvation from impending death. For the first time ever a Polish commercial bank provided a loan for production of a film in expectation of its commercial success, and it was rewarded. The film's success in post-Soviet Poland proves that there indeed can be life after state subsidies to culture.

Mr. Stupka, visibly inspired by this spectacular breakthrough, said that all the ingredients for an epic Ukrainian film meant for mass consumption exist: a good production team headed by the director Yuriy Illienko, fine actors and a "fantastic script" about a fascinating man, Ivan Mazepa. However, there is no money. To realize the project a measly $5 million is needed.

Maybe "With Fire and Sword" will trigger a healthy rivalry in Ukraine. Maybe it will convince a Ukrainian Carnegie or Mellon to rise up to the Polish challenge and put together a budget for a Ukrainian epic picture.

The perception of this film here in the U.S. will most likely be along the long-established lines of division between Anglo-American (that is, Hollywood-type) movies on the one hand, and foreign movies on the other. It is not too far-fetched to predict that the film, for all its ambition and scale, will remain largely unnoticed by the American film-goer. Anticipating this, Mr. Hoffman refused to tailor this three-hour movie to the demands of large-scale U.S. distributors. Launching the film on the American market, he targeted primarily Polish American, and secondly Ukrainian American, viewers of the first generation, those who are able to react emotionally to certain semiotic cues, to certain visual and acoustic paradigms. These viewers will sit through the film as if it were a 10-minute episode and would beg for more.

To many who relate to the material more on the rational than experiential emotive level, the film might very well be a bore, a meaningless sequence of battle-scenes alternating with feasts and singing. For those, tickets to "Elizabeth" or "Shakespeare in Love" would be money much better spent. That the majority of non-American movies have a very limited appeal here is not so much a fault of a particular European film: it is simply a fact of the distinct cultural orientation of the U.S. audience. Several years ago the French film "Tous les Matins du Mond," starring Gerard Depardieux, was the biggest box-office success of the year in France - much bigger than any Hollywood production. Yet, even in New York with its sophisticated audience, it was shown only in two or three small cinemas before it lapsed into the oblivion of selected video rentals. And still there are sure signs of success.

Though the organization of the film's distribution leaves much to be desired, "With Fire and Sword" has already been seen in the New York metropolitan area and Connecticut by an impressive 12,000 film-goers - and that is in the course of just two to three weeks. The film already ran in Chicago. In June the film will be shown in New Jersey and Philadelphia.

Yuri Shevchuk is on the editorial staff of the newspaper Svoboda. He is an instructor of the Ukrainian language at the Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute. He holds a doctoral degree in German and philology from Kyiv State University and an M.A. in political science from the New School in New York.

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