Reactions from the audience (08/25/02)

Reactions from the audience

Led by the old maxim "Vox populi, vox Dei," selected viewers were polled after the screening. They were asked four questions.

In your opinion, what is the film about?

Roman Szporluk, Mykhailo Hrushevskyi Professor of Ukrainian History, Harvard: "The message of the film is in the reflection that it provokes about certain permanent themes and issues of Ukrainian history, namely the problem of national solidarity, of loyalty to the cause. Here we get the critical message of Mazepa who mentions with sadness, but little surprise, the Kozak units that never arrived to the battle or sided with the enemy. In a more dramatic and explicit form, the same message is reiterated in Charles' monologue, when he explains that he is the king of Swedes and not mercenaries without a national identity.
Wawa Baczynskyj, a viewer from Boston: "I am quite unsure of what the film is about. On the one hand it seems to have a description of a series of historical events, and on the other hand it is incredibly preachy. It was very clear to me that great parallels were being made between the past and the present. It was trying to teach the whole Ukrainian nation what it was supposed to be doing to be on its feet.
Lubomyr Hajda, associate director of Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute: The film seems to me to be an interpretation of Hetman Ivan Mazepa and Ukrainian history of his time as seen in a phantasmagoric dream in the mind of the director, Illienko. For me the main message of the film concerning the figure of Mazepa is that he was neither an unequivocal hero, nor an unequivocal villain as, depending on one's point of view, he tends to be portrayed in literature and scholarship. The director exhibits certain ambivalences in his attitudes toward Mazepa, though less so toward the historical situation and the difficulties that Mazepa found himself in. According to the film, no choice that Mazepa faced could yield the optimal result, though his devotion to Ukraine was true.

The other is the image of Ukraine which is represented in many ways - in the women that populate the screen, or the map of Europe with Ukraine as a woman that gets raped by the powerful men around her, and other symbols. I think that the combination of this image of Ukraine as a victim of violence represented by sexual abuse and the image of Mazepa who attempted to do something for this country that was probably doomed to failure are the main messages that I got from the film.
Michael Flier, Oleksander Potebnia Professor of Ukrainian Philology, Harvard: The director is providing a meditation in dream-like sequences on a number of major themes, all important to Ukrainian history and Ukrainian identity, themes of power - Who truly has it? Who freely uses it? Who is destroyed by it? - and its corollaries of dominance and submission, of self-absorption, of lust and jealousy, of love and hatred. Using the conceit of the Mazepa-Peter dynamic, Illienko sees them as reflections of each other, both narcissistic, intent on control and independence, driven to sweeping theatrical gestures, and acts of dominance and humiliation. The homo-erotic leitmotif provides a vehicle to comment on the attraction between powerful men and the need for physical domination and humiliation to prove their vitality and roles as leaders.

"Ukraine as a woman becomes the object of lust in this contest, one in which she is both defenseless victim and controlling dominatrix. In the last analysis, the director maybe commenting on Tolstoy's notions about the ineffectuality of "great leaders" in the grand scheme of history. A naked Peter riding off on a wild horse, his hands tied behind him, is matched by a similar scene with Mazepa later in the film.
Anna Müller, Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute student, Poland: The movie was definitely overwhelming, and I should watch it at least three or four more times in order to grasp the main points. I think it is very healthy that Ukraine is presented in the film with a good dose of irony and sarcasm - always as a woman, sometimes raped, sometimes insane, at times as Mazepa's lover, at times his godchild who becomes his lover. There is always, though, this strange sort of sexual relationship - someone always has to seduce and betray. This sort of martyrology proves particularly appealing to East-European artists.

Another image that really appealed to me was the metaphor of history: an old woman with very big motherly breasts, even though it has not always been a good mother for Ukraine, with insane eyes and incessant curses flowing from her mouth until the director covers it, saying - OK, that's enough. History talks to us through different people: Voltaire, Tolstoy, common people, legends handed down from generation to generation. Every generation creates its own history, and every generation has its own dimension of objectivity. It the end does it really matter whether or not Peter the Great was insane? Not really. What matters is how his image affects us and what is the purpose we need it for. What really matters is the narrative and the way it influences us and not the historical truth. That is the post-modern dimension of the movie.

Did you like the film?

Dr. Szporluk: "I am speaking only as a movie-goer, a non-specialist, as someone who sometimes, not too often, goes to the movies and sometimes likes what he sees and sometimes does not. " I found the film interesting and indeed fascinating. I really feel it to be a major achievement of the world-class level. This is not an illustration to a history book, it's a work of art, a post-modernist work of creative imagination.
Ms. Baczynskyj: I found Mr. Illienko's film very irritating. It needs a good amount of editing. It is unfinished and much too long. I do not think the creator has given his audience one ounce of credit for intelligence. I felt like I was hit over the head 25 times by the same message. In my opinion the film is very moralistic. I feel bad that it is going out as the big Ukrainian movie.
Dr. Hajda: There is much in the film that I liked and much that I admired without necessarily liking it. Much of the cinematography was very effective, some of the symbolism, many images, the occasional humor. There were many very striking parts, in particular the vertep sequence, the devastation of Baturyn, the representation of Peter I. Despite the certain hyperbole inherent in this kind of surreal film, I think the picture of Peter is a powerful corrective to the hagiographic treatment of him in Russian scholarship, fiction and cinema. He was a very complex and psychologically probably a very sick man.

On the other hand, the film is simply too long. It would benefit from editing and pruning, which could enhance its effectiveness both as a piece of art and as a medium to convey its message. It lacked a certain sense of economy, particularly in the last half-hour. Although the historical context seems well enough realized and film - like historical fiction - allows great leeway for the imagination, I was not persuaded that making Liubov Kochubei the central female figure and Mazepa's love/sex object is an improvement on his real interest in her daughter, Motria. Some of the sexual and scatological imagery (especially that involving Peter) seems to me artistically valid and effective, but some seems gratuitous and by its overuse weakens the point it tries to make.
Dr. Flier: The film had some very strong points and is obviously provocative. I was impressed by wonderful allusions to the great East Slavic cinema tradition (especially Dovzhenko, Eisenstein and Tarkovsky, for example, the importance of landscape and the interaction with nature - especially water with its ability to destroy and generate, and the references to medieval orthodoxy and paganism - the effective use of the blessing of the waters ritual, the funereal rafts let loose on the river. Peter I is right out of the great Surikov painting when he presides over the execution of the rebellious striltsi (riflemen). And the humor throughout animated the characters and the narrative in striking ways. It is important that a nation such as Ukraine is able to produce such a work of art at this point in its development. But the film is much too long and repetitive. It needs major editing.
Ms. Müller: I enjoyed it a lot. I wish movies like this were made in my country. We need to stop treating ourselves so dead seriously, as we do right now. Poland cannot be the "Christ of Nations" any longer, there is too much competition in this field.

Do you think the film is anti-Russian?

Ms. Baczynskyj: The film is not anti-Russian or anti-Ukrainian, it is more anti-power. When people are in power, they make deals, they do things that in some ways have very little connection to what the people whom they represent really need.
Dr. Flier: No. The cynical view of history and its characters is cast on all characters and events.
Dr. Hajda: The film obviously presents certain figures and events of Russian history, in a light the Russians might not like. That however, does not make the film anti-Russian. Some Ukrainians may not like the representation of Ukraine and Ukrainians in the film either, but that does not make it anti-Ukrainian.

Is the Ukrainian audience ready for such a film?

Dr. Szporluk: Watching this film I began to imagine what reactions it will generate - we already know the official Russian circles hate it - but I am sure we may expect almost equally negative reactions, although for different reasons, from some traditionalist Ukrainian patriots. To them I would say: Let's face it. Do we want to forbid Ukrainian artists to do what artists in France and Britain, Italy and Germany are free to do and actually do? Have we not answered yet the question Khvyliovy asked 80 years ago? Do we still think that for the Ukrainians Prosvita is enough, and that for "Europe" they are not ready even today? To me, the film proves that at least the Ukrainian cultural elite is safely in "Europe." I suspect that more regular viewers in Ukraine than we think are also comfortably in "Europe."

I would not worry whether or not the film is a commercial success. One should not forget that one of the most popular operas of all times, "Carmen," was a total fiasco when it was first performed in Paris, and the composer Georges Bizet died before learning that his opera was not that bad. The proof of the success of this film, and I agree here with what Mr. Baley said in his introductory remarks, is that it does not leave you indifferent in terms of ideology, that it excites you as a work of art, it makes you mad, excited, but you nevertheless want to watch it to the end. If you can get people to watch your film for two and half hours - even if at the end they say it was terrible - you have already won.

* * *

The screening of "A Prayer for Hetman Mazepa" at Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute was made possible thanks to the assistance of Mr. Baley, composer of its score. and the cooperation of Ihor Didkovsky, the film's producer.

- Yuri Shevchuk

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