Stupka stars in Russian film screened at Toronto film festival (11/14/04)

Stupka stars in Russian film screened at Toronto film festival

by Oksana Zakydalsky

TORONTO - Although the Ukrainian film industry is today described as dead or at the very least moribund, some Ukrainian actors are finding work in other countries while Ukrainian venues or allusions to Ukraine appear in films not listed as Ukrainian.

The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) held on September 9-18 featured the Russian film Svoi (Our Own) which stars Bohdan (or rather - Bogdan - as he is listed in the credits) Stupka. The film won the Grand Prix and Mr. Stupka won the Best Actor Award at the Moscow Film Festival held in June for his role. The two-hour film, in Russian, was directed by Dmitry Meskhiyev and was featured in the Contemporary World Cinema program at the festival.

The program notes quote the director as saying that the film "is indebted to those Soviet films that tried to express the complexities of war but were suppressed by the Kremlin." Indeed, this film brings in several such complexities.

It is August 1941 and as the Germans advance on the Eastern front, a trio of Soviet (called Russian in the program) soldiers escapes while on a forced march to a detention camp. Tolya is a security officer (commissar) but is posing as a civilian soldier to escape certain execution; Lifshits is a Jew; and Mitya is a sniper from the region. Upon their escape, the three head for the property owned by Mitya's father, Ivan (Stupka), where they hope to hide out.

Ivan has recently returned from the gulag - it is made clear that he is Ukrainian. He is starosta (head man) of the village, some of whose residents have been recruited into the police of the occupying German forces. The three soldiers find refuge in Ivan's barn, but it becomes clear very quickly that, for Ivan, the best and safest solution would be to get rid of Tolya and Lifshits and hide only his son. The two, Tolya and Lifshits, are well aware of this possibility and take measures to protect themselves - they attack a sole German patrol on a motorcycle and disarm him.

Mitya lusts after the daughter of Ivan's widow neighbor who looks to Ivan as the protector of her family. However, the local police captain also wants to marry the girl, but her mother insists that she needs Ivan's permission to marry. Meanwhile, the murder of the German patrol compels the police captain to implement the usual punishment - 10 people from each nearby village are arrested and will be executed until the three fleeing soldiers, whom the police know are the killers, are turned in. Among the arrested are Ivan's two daughters.

The film has a washed-out palette, which gives it a battle-scarred look. Although it paints a horrifying, graphic picture of the devastation of war, this is just the backdrop to the complexities of morality and family confronted by Ivan. Mr. Stupka is superb - in his face one can actually see how his conflicting choices way heavily upon his soul.

The TIFF also featured a new film by formerly Kyiv- based director Kira Muratova - "Naistroyschik" (The Tuner). Although filmed at the Odesa Film Studio and copyrighted by the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine, the film was listed in the Contemporary World Cinema under "country: Russia" (it was in Russian).

As well, a short film titled "Ya Umer v Detstve..." (I Died in Childhood) made at the Paradjanov Film Studio in Armenia (in Russian) by the nephew of Armenian Sergei Paradjanov, which showed several scenes from Paradjanov's "Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors," was listed under "country: Russia."

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