Mazepa Film

[Ulysses]

Has anyone watched this?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp...nguage=printer

In Ukraine, a Film's Hazy History Lesson

Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, October 2, 2002; Page C01


KIEV, Ukraine

The climactic scene of Ukraine's first real epic movie features the Russian czar Peter the Great and the Cossack hetman, or leader, who betrayed him, Ivan Mazepa, drinking toasts at a surreal bloody banquet as the Battle of Poltava rages around them.

"Thank you, great tyrant, for destroying Ukraine!" cries Mazepa.

A crazed Peter leaps across the table and seizes Mazepa's face. "I will tear your mouth, you stinking dog!" Then he turns to his troops. "Soldiers! Kill all Ukrainians! For the Czar!"

"A Prayer for Hetman Mazepa," Ukraine's biggest-budget feature film since the nation declared its independence in 1991, boasts little of the subtlety of highbrow post-Soviet cinema from Russia and none of the escapism mass-produced by Hollywood. It will not stir young girls like "Titanic" or young boys like another "Star Wars" installment. Yet it is stirring a national dialogue about what it means to be Ukrainian in a country that never really was a country until just 11 years ago.

Mazepa, as every Ukrainian knows, is famed for switching sides during Peter's long-running war with Sweden in exchange for a promise of Ukrainian independence -- only to watch the Russians crush that dream, along with the Swedes, at Poltava in 1709. For nearly three centuries since, Mazepa has been reviled in Russian and Soviet history books as the ultimate traitor. But now that his own people finally enjoy the freedom he failed to win, he has been rehabilitated. In perhaps the ultimate honor a new nation can give, Ukraine put his face on its currency.

It was probably inevitable, then, that he would be the subject of Ukraine's most ambitious attempt at grand filmmaking to date -- and perhaps just as inevitable that the movie would so infuriate Moscow that it has been effectively banned in Russia. For Ukraine, "Prayer" has become part of the ongoing search for national identity in a place still rediscovering a history wiped out by generations of foreign rule.

"The film doesn't give any answers to the audience," said Philip Illienko, son of the film's director, Yuri Illienko, and one of three actors who play Mazepa. "I think it states the questions and each person who sees the film has to make up his mind: Who was Mazepa and what was his role in Ukrainian history and what is Ukraine's place in Europe and the world?"

Yuri Illienko's view of Ukraine's traditional place becomes clear at the start of the film, as his Mazepa displays a map of Europe in the shape of a woman, her intimate area placed in the east where Ukraine is today. The metaphor of Ukraine as a woman raped repeatedly by invaders persists throughout the movie's often-graphic sexual imagery. Mazepa, in Illienko's view, represents what might have been, the nationhood Ukraine was denied so long ago and achieved so belatedly.

Illienko, 66, a longtime director who made several movies that were banned during Soviet times, has wanted to make this film since the 1970s but could never do so as long as Russians ruled. He argues that had King Charles XII of Sweden beaten Peter the Great at Poltava and kept his deal, Mazepa would have been remembered as the George Washington of Ukraine.

Instead, Peter heard Mazepa was plotting against him and took his vengeance by slaughtering thousands of Ukrainians at the hetman's home base of Baturyn, sending their bodies floating down a river to intimidate Mazepa's soldiers from following his lead. With the Cossacks thus split and dispirited, Peter went on to defeat Charles at Poltava in what became the pinnacle of the czar's reign, establishing Russia as a great European power for the first time.

Mazepa, on the other hand, died in disgraced exile; only in 1992 did the Ukrainian Orthodox Church remove the anathema, or curse of damnation, placed upon him by Peter's order, and only in 1999 were his remains returned from Romania for burial at Baturyn.

Illienko put together "A Prayer for Hetman Mazepa" only by enlisting the help of the post-Soviet government, which contributed a share of the $2.3 million production costs, a fortune by Ukrainian standards. The government also contributed the film's lead actor, Bohdan Stupka, a former minister of culture. The movie debuted at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year and premiered in the United States at a showing at Harvard University in August. After months of hype and debate, it hits the screens in Ukraine for the first time this month.

"Prayer" may confuse foreign audiences. It is not a linear narrative intended to represent reality, but rather a 152-minute "phantasmagoric dream of history," as Illienko put it, a circus hall of mirrors in which characters and scenes are twisted, warped distorted. The special effects are comically crude, almost as if in a stage play -- a tide of red paint to represent blood, porcelain statues mixed in with real actors to represent a battlefield of corpses.

Mazepa dies and comes back to life several times, in one form or another. Characters are raped, decapitated and tarred and feathered. The portrayal of Peter is particularly brutal; he comes across as a stark raving madman who sodomizes one of his own soldiers in the opening sequence. Mazepa does not always seem a font of sanity, either, with much of the movie focusing on his sexual appetites, including an affair with his goddaughter.

Reviews have been predictably mixed. Variety, the bible of the American film industry, panned it. While finding "moments of strange beauty in the midst of all the cacophony," it complained that Illienko had shown "an almost amateurish disregard for audience sensibilities" and declared that "his indigestible style here dooms what could have been an impressive saga."

Yuri Shevchuk, a scholar who teaches Ukrainian at a Harvard summer institute, described it as "a kind of Freudian foray into the human psyche," though he too lamented that it was not a more reality-based portrayal akin to Mel Gibson's "Braveheart."

Yet he wrote that the desire for entertainment "does not override the desire to understand exactly why Ukrainians seem so doomed to relive the same national failure over and over again." The relationship between Peter and Mazepa "is the key to understanding the centuries-old relationship between Ukraine and Russia. Not incidentally, love and passion in Illienko's film go together with death and decay, domination and control, humiliation and murderous insanity."

The unhappiest reviews have come from Russia, where the government has advised movie houses not to run it. "The Ministry of Culture believes this film is anti-Russian and turns the known history of Russian-Ukrainian relations on its head, and therefore does not recommend that it be shown in Russian theaters," Culture Minister Mikhail Shidkoi announced in July.

Even some prominent Ukrainians have expressed discomfort with the film and its ramifications on relations with Moscow. Viktor Pinchuk, a leading businessman and the president's son-in-law, said he had not seen it but was disturbed by what he had read. "This kind of interpretation of Russian history, I don't like it," he said in a recent interview.

Philip Illienko, the actor and director's son, said people have overreacted. "This is not an anti-Russian film," he said. "This is an anti-imperialist film. The imperial part of Russia, they sure will not like it. But it doesn't insult Russia itself."

As for the dark themes, he said, "Most of Ukraine's history is a dark one and I'm not sure we are now coming through a bright period. But the [Mazepa] period was a moment when our nation had a chance to throw off the yoke of Moscow and to become really independent. In our history we had only a few chances to do so. And only the last time did we manage to do so."

[Zbyszek]

Hi, Ulysses

You are a real veteran of this forum. When did you post your first message?
It was thoghtful of you to remind a set of Nobel Prize winners of Polish ancestry. I wish the Ukrainian nation a lot of such prizes. By the way, could you also quote the Nobel Prizes granted to the Ukrainians?
I was glad to hear about the independent Ukrainian production. This is just one of so desirable Ukrainian cultural facts I expected (see my contribution "A proposal from Warsaw" in a history thread named LWOW). I would like to see this film in Warsaw.
Mazepa's name has been made popular by the outstanding Polish poet Juliusz Slowacki (What a pity Nobels were not available at the times of Byron, Pushkin, Shevchenko, Mickiewicz, Geothe). His best known poem is entitled "Mazepa", but it is more a poetic fantasy than a real historic account. Slowacki was born in Ukraine (Krzemieniec/Kremenec) and he lived there when a boy and youngster (Bo tam, gdzie Ikwy srebrne fale plyna, bylem ja niegdys jak Zoska dziecina...).
New cinema halls in Warsaw are really impressive. I visited one of the huge building called "Galeria Mokotow", being a business center/market store/cinema etc. I'd strongly recommend the possible Warsaw visitors to see this building.
I wanted to watch "The beautiful mind" which is about to leave the Warsaw cinemas. I got there by car with my wife. We parked the car in the enormous six-storey park building. Several cinema halls gave a wide review of the current world production. I found the film really good. We left our hall and we had a problem: how to find our car. We remembered a level denoted as "cat" level (the levels as denoted as "dog", "giraffe" etc. to make them easier to remember). Eventually it turned out there were two park buildings there - one for the higher and the other one for the lower cars.
Ulysses, have you heard of a new Roman Polanski's production "The pianist"? Its world premiere took place in Warsaw last week.

[Edited by Zbyszek on 5th October 2002 at 14:31]

[Ulysses]

Hi Zbyszek,

How are you doing? I first started posting in April of 2002 I believe.

I compiled a list of Ukrainian Nobel Prize winners but I'll put that on a new thread to hopefully open up discussion.

The two Poles I'm most familiar with are Tadeusz Kosciuszko and Casimir Pulaski. Heros of the American revolution. Pulaski has about 30 town and counties named after him. I believe both of them have warships named after them.

Warsaw is developing quite nicely. There is one internet site I often visit to track major projects in different cities...Warsaw has many notable new buildings under construction. http://www.skyscraperpage.com/diagra...hp?city=Warsaw

I heard about the Pianist, it won an award at the Cannes Film Festival. It's one movie I would like to see.

[Zbyszek]

Hi Ulysses,

I believe you like films. I could compare your thoughtful Polish Jokes to AMELIA( Amelie) actions. Have you watched this French film? It is my favourite.
Greetings for Odysseus from Po(lanski)land and Wajdaland.

Post Script
Thank you for the Ukrainian Nobel Prize references

[Ulysses]

Hi Zbyszek,

Yes I have watched the movie. It was a good movie and it did well at the box office too. I live right next to(Hollywood) the movie capital of the world...Los Angeles. They do have nice premiers from time to time.

They closed down Hollywood Boulevard, That's were the Mann Chinese (and the Walk of Fame originates)theatre are located. Apparently they're doing a big budget remake of the Italian Job.

Originally posted by Zbyszek
Hi Ulysses,

I believe you like films. I could compare your thoughtful Polish Jokes to AMELIA( Amelie) actions. Have you watched this French film? It is my favourite.
Greetings for Odysseus from Po(lanski)land and Wajdaland.

Post Script
Thank you for the Ukrainian Nobel Prize references

[happy_gunner]

Mr Shevchuk thinks the film should be a "reality-based portrayal akin to Mel Gibson's "Braveheart.""
Mr Shevchuk should stick to languages if he thinks Braveheart is reality-based.
I haven't seen the Mazepa film but should be applauded for resisting the temptation to dress fantasy up as reality a la Braveheart, Roots, In The Name Of The Father, Titanic, and heaven knows how many WW2 films.

Anyone seen the great 1930s film "The Arsenal Stadium Mystery"? (Only kidding)