The 32nd Molodist International Film Festival opened at the Ukraine Palace in Kyiv with a premiere of Bohdan Khmelnytsky produced by Mykola Mashchenko at the Dovzhenko National Studios after a long interval. The story focuses on two major events in the Ukrainian-Polish confrontation in 1648: the siege of Zbarazh and the Battle of Berestechko. Two well-costumed armies (thousands of extras, not counting actors from all major Kyiv drama companies) fought to the last man, military leaders planned new operations, debated, fell into despair, the king and the hetman discharged their authoritarian functions, and beautiful ladies appeared now and then in both military camps. In a word, another history onscreen routine. However, the treacherous genre requires a comprehensible, spectacular, even informative plot, not just well-rehearsed techniques.
Without doubt, Bohdan Khmelnytsky is a sequel to the historical series in the Ukrainian filmmaking industry throughout the 1990s, receiving a noticeable impetus after Jerzy Hoffman’s Polish blockbuster With Fire and Sword, including Les Sanin’s Mamai (still to appear onscreen and despite all the distinctions in style and caliber), Yuri Illienko’s scandalous Mazepa, and the failing Genghis Khan and Black Council. Mykola Mashchenko’s contribution to the hetman saga presents a rather typical situation. For the director, a veteran of the Party-guided Ukrainian filmmaking epoch abiding by Leninism and social realism (The Commissar, The Gadfly, and How the Steel Was Tempered are his creative landmarks in the last twenty years of the Soviet regime {Is this really fair? After all, Mashchenko was well known back then for his collaboration with young scriptwriter and poet Ivan Drach — Ed.}), choosing a historical topic was only natural. Few masters of costume productions of his caliber can do without political emotionalism and ideological coloration, something they learned so well in Soviet times. His Bohdan Khmelnytsky is yet more proof.
All the characters, be it an ordinary Cossack, a Polish aristocrat, king, or hetman, speak their lines made up of cliches (script by Andriy Yaremchuk and Mykola Mashchenko), as though borrowed from a special report called something like “The Assertion of the National Idea in Ukraine in the Liberation Wars of the Seventeenth Century.” Modern realities, however, force their way onscreen. We see Khmelnytsky (played by Volodymyr Abazopulo) explaining to Cossacks that they must not rob Polish churches and that they must respect a different religions and then, away from the public eye, he complains of the burden of power (another way to say that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and we all remember that adage upheld by Soviet propaganda). The picture consists of battle scenes (well staged and on an impressive scope, it should be noted) and of reflections on folk — Polish or Ukrainian — destinies. Evidence of Fire and Sword’s influence is in the war being shown as seen through the eyes of the Cossacks and Polish szlachta. In other words, although fighting to the last man, they each have their own truth, all being patriots and decent people in their own way.
In a word, the story is based on good prerequisites. A country still to fully comprehend its national idea can use a romantic story from its not too successful past. Romanticism, however, means doing everything beautifully, with a great deal of inspiration. One can dress the cast in gorgeous costumes, hire thousands of extras, real cavalry units, have location shootings at castles looking as though they were built yesterday, and still portray Cossacks the way one used to portray Komsomol fanatics, ardent revolutionaries, and commissars — in other words, continue in the Soviet filmmaking vein, mercilessly dull and completely uninteresting to the audience.
In fact, Khmelnytsky is not the only production with this big flaw; all our costume dramas have it, turning out stable and hopeless failures. It is an illness, rather than a shortcoming, an epidemic of bad luck, making all talk about the revival of our nation’s filmmaking lose any sense.
All it takes is to make it just once, but with real interest, zest, and belief in what you are making. Then it would be Ukraine’s first blockbuster, with people forming lines in front of box offices, salvation for the Ukrainian filmmaking industry, just as With Fire and Sword (not an outstanding production, if truth be told) was for the Polish one.
Only one little thing must be added: talent.
P.S.: Mykola Mashchenko said in an interview with the Kiesvkie vedomosti: “The Ukrainian people needs its heroes.” One is hard pressed to disagree. Another thing is how. this hero will be presented to the Ukrainian people. We believe that Mashchenko’s new film, having already called forth a mixed response, will help us find an answer to this question.
