Quote:
Yuri Illyenko, the master Ukrainian cinematographer who shot Sergei Paradjanov’s Shadows of Our Forgotten Ancestors (1965) and directed the long-banned A Spring for the Thirsty (1965) and The Eve of Ivan Kupalo (1968), based this striking 1990 allegorical film on stories by Paradjanov that were inspired by his long sojourns in prison. The film was shot at the prison where Paradjanov was confined, using contemporary prisoners as extras, and it might be said that the documentary and poetic-symbolic aspects of this movie are equally germane to its overall impact. Three days before his sentence is to end, a prisoner (Victor Solovyov) escapes and hides out inside a giant hammer and sickle that borders the prison grounds, where he is discovered and nursed back to health by a beautiful woman (Liudmyla Yefymenko, Illyenko’s wife) who becomes his lover. One of the first independent Soviet productions, partially financed in Sweden and Canada, the film tells its story with a minimum of dialogue and very striking imagery. – Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

From Yuri Ilyenko’s letter to a friend, Marko Stech:
“As you undoubtedly know, the art of cinema has no appropriate rendering in the verbal realm of expression. Such in the case with any form of visual art. Hence, my subjugated mind seeks remedy in an image. An image is wiser than a word because it always represents a prophecy that has not as yet bound itself with words. I made this film because it was impossible for me not to have made it. it is about escape – about a prisoner. I myself have always felt a prisoner in a vast zone, together with my entire nation. Escape is the last, desperate hope. Such is also an escape into art.”

Swan.Lake.The.Zone.1989.dvdrip.x264.catrogers.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1h 36mn
Size: 	1.34 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	720x572 ~> 762x572
Aspect ratio:  	4:3
Frame rate: 	25.000 fps
Bit rate: 	1 733 Kbps
BPP: 	0.168
Audio
#1:  	Ukrainian 2.0ch AC-3 @ 224 Kbps

https://nitro.download/view/B4F315C299A5653/Swan.Lake.The.Zone.1989.dvdrip.x264.catrogers.mkv

Language(s):Ukrainian, Russian
Subtitles:English

The post Yuri Ilyenko – Lebedyne ozero-zona aka Swan Lake – The Zone (1990) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
The young peasant, Petro, falls deeply in love with the daughter of his employer. Though she reciprocates his affection, her father staunchly opposes the idea of her marrying a simple laborer. Overwhelmed by grief, Petro seeks solace at a local tavern, where he encounters Basavriuk, a figure believed by many to be the devil himself. Basavriuk presents Petro with a chilling proposition, one that could enable him to win the girl he yearns for.

The.Eve.of.Ivan.Kupalo.1968.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.x264-ZETA.mkv

General
Container:  	Matroska
Runtime: 	1 h 11 min
Size: 	2.17 GiB
Video
Codec: 	x264
Resolution: 	1920x1080 
Aspect ratio:  	16:9
Frame rate: 	24.000 fps
Bit rate: 	4 147 kb/s
BPP: 	0.083
Audio
#1:  	Ukrainian 2.0ch AAC LC @ 192 kb/s

https://nitro.download/view/F1DA3F21F5DB49A/The.Eve.of.Ivan.Kupalo.1968.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.x264-ZETA.mkv
https://nitro.download/view/0DE4ACBB0424FC0/The.Eve.of.Ivan.Kupalo.1968.1080p.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.x264-ZETA_-_eng_02.srt

Language(s):Ukrainian
Subtitles:English

The post Yuri Ilyenko – Vechir na Ivana Kupala AKA The Eve of Ivan Kupalo (1968) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Quote:
Colourful ‘optimistic tragedy’ of a poor family in Ukraine, living in the Carpathian mountains near the Romanian border, during the Second World War. Five sons of the family make up the village band, but as the battles between the Nazi-supported Ukranian nationalists and the Soviets go on, their band loses one player after another.

Winner of the Grand prize at the 1971 Moscow Film Festival, White Bird with a Black Mark is set in western Ukraine, in an area that has passed through the control of several nations over the centuries. despairing at the poverty of is family, a boy decides the stork is the cause of all their problems, and sets out to kill it. But soon everyone’s situation will be challenged, as World War II breaks out and the region is carved into warring battle zones, with brother being forced to fight against brother. Yuri Illienko once again brings his dazzling poetic vision to this tale of loyalty to family, to nation, to state—and to oneself. The film is widely considered one of the most important works of the Ukrainian film heritage.

https://nitro.download/view/DB066724B330E2C/The.White.Bird.Marked.With.Black.1971.dvdrip.x264.catrogers.mkv

Language(s):Ukrainian
Subtitles:English

The post Yuri Ilyenko – Bilyy ptakh z chornoyu vidznakoyu AKA The White Bird Marked with Black (1971) first appeared on Cinema of the World.

Banned by the Soviet authorities, Vecher nakanune Ivana Kupala (The Eve of Ivan Kupalo) is widely held to be one of the masterpieces of Ukrainian Poetic Cinema. Adapted from a short story of Gogol, which had its roots in Ukrainian folklore, the film depicts an almost Faustian pact, in which Piotr makes an unholy deal with Bassaruv in order that he may win the hand of Pidorka from her father. The director Yuri Ilyenko brings the same rich, vivid imagery that he lent to Parajanov’s Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors where he worked as the cinematographer. The film often makes difficult first viewing for unaccustomed viewers due to its hallucinatory nature, but its lucid tapestry renders it a mandatory experience.

Review:

This 1968 Russian mind bender has sorcery, murder, tortured romance, mass hallucinations and bold, frenzied visuals worthy of Dario Argento or Alejandro Jodorowski–in short, it’s a certified classic of surreal horror that remains frustratingly unknown in the Western world.

The Package:

Director Yuri Ilyenko started his career as a cinematographer on films like Sergie Parajanov’s classic TINI ZABUTYKH PREDKIV (SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS; 1964), a job he continues to perform on his own directorial efforts, which include LEBEDYNE OZERO-ZONA (SWAN LAKE THE ZONE; 1990) and MOLITVA ZA GETMANA MAZEPU (A PRAYER FOR HETMAN MAZEPA; 2002). VECHER NAKANUNE IVANA KUPALA (THE EVE OF IVAN KUPALO), Ilyenko’s second outing as a director, was based on the story “The Eve of St. John” by Nikolai Gogol (who in turn based it on a Ukrainian fairy tale), whose work has provided the source material for genre classics like BLACK SUNDAY and VIY, in whose company IVANA KUPALA rightly belongs.

Unsurprisingly, the vibrant, sexy and surreal IVANA KUPALA was banned by Communist authorities, just as Ilyenko’s directorial debut RODNIK DLJA ZHAZHDUSHCHIKH (A SPRING FOR THE THRISTY; 1965) and the aforementioned TINI ZABUTYKH PREDKIV were. The ban has since been overturned, yet the film remains undeservedly obscure. Outside a brief theatrical run in 1989 as part of a program dedicated to screening films considered too “risky” for commercial release, it has never been distributed in the US. I for one think it’s past time we were granted access to this hallucinatory gem ASAP!

The Story:

Piotr is a modest farmhand living in an impoverished village in some unspecified long ago era. He wants to marry the lovely Pidorka, but her stern father won’t hear of it. Luckily for Piotr, the mischievous demon Bassaruv is loose in the land, and offers him a deal: pluck a flower that blooms only on the eve of Ivan Kupalo and he’ll grace the penniless Piotr with several bags of gold. The only thing is, Bassaruv is in fact the Devil himself and, together with an equally diabolic witch, tricks Piotr into killing the youthful brother of his desired bride.

As promised, Piotr is given a mound of gold, which convinces Pidorka’s father to allow the marriage to go forth. But Piotr finds himself afflicted with amnesia…and quite a few bizarre hallucinations (a bleeding loaf of bread, people walking on his ceiling, etc.). His memory finally returns on the following eve of Ivan Kupalo, but his house burns to the ground, incinerating Piotr inside.

The widowed Pidorka finds herself understandably grief-stricken. She becomes a nun and takes to wandering the land with Piotr’s ashes. One day, however, she’s harassed by a horse-riding army led by the demonic Bassaruv, and spills most of the ashes. In desperation, Pidorka takes what little remains of her beloved to a candlelight festival honoring an icon of the Virgin Mary–it cries magical tears apparently capable of raising the dead…

The Direction:

The experience of viewing this film may be a rough one for Western viewers: it lacks the slick professionalism we’ve come to expect from our cinema and is steeped in Ukrainian folklore, which feels so foreign to our own culture it may as well emanate from another planet. The tripped-out handheld camerawork, whiplash changes in tone (from horror to slapstick comedy to action to religious drama) and bewildering variety of cinematic techniques utilized herein (negative exposure, superimpositions, fast motion) can also seem off-putting. The hallucinatory sequences, while appropriately mind-boggling, are likewise puzzling, simply because the film’s sense of “reality” is hopelessly skewed to begin with (in particular a wedding procession set on a tiny island bearing a miniature castle and the interior of the protagonist’s house, with paintings of tree branches covering the walls).

The film is a must-see nonetheless, although it may take a few viewings to fully comprehend Yuri Ilyenko’s defiantly off-kilter approach. Audacity and exuberance are his major assets, and combine here to create a stunningly hallucinatory symphony of sight and sound.
— Fright.com

http://www.nitroflare.com/view/AEF493BEE3142E9/the-eve-of-ivan-kupala-1968-yuri-ilyenko.mkv
http://www.nitroflare.com/view/1E08BAAEC866F8D/the-eve-of-ivan-kupala-1968-yuri-ilyenko.srt

Language(s):Ukrainian, Russian
Subtitles:English, Ukrainian (muxed), English (srt)

The post Yuri Ilyenko – Vecher nakanune Ivana Kupala AKA The Eve of Ivan Kupala (1968) first appeared on Cinema of the World.