This 1981 Ukrainian film can be called the spiritual successor to Sergei Paradjanov’s classic SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS/TINI ZABUTYKH PREDKIV (1964). The recently remade A STORY OF THE FOREST: MAVKA (LISOVA PISNYA. MAVKA) was written, directed and photographed by Yuri Ilyenko, who served as director of photography on Paradjanov’s film, a folklore-inspired love story with mystical overtones set in the Carpathian Mountains. MAVKA was likewise inspired by Ukrainian folk tales—and a play by Lesya Ukrainka—about an impossible love in a distant era where magic held sway.
…a folklore-inspired love story with mystical overtones set in the Carpathian Mountains.
In this era, in a land of endless trees and swamps, wood nymphs and spirits roam. Among the former is Mavka, a brunette who upon alighting on the terrestrial plane falls in love with the dashing musician Lukash (and his flute). Their bliss doesn’t last very long, as Lukash runs off with the bitchy Kilina. Devastated, Mavka heads back to the spiritual realm, but returns to the mortal plain when the Spirit of the Forest, an extremely imposing, bearded figure, turns Lukash into a werewolf.
Mavka, who still loves Lukash, is able to restore him to his former self, but Kilina intervenes, somehow causing Mavka to be transformed into a weeping willow. Lukash in turn burns down the cabin he shares with Kilina, but in so doing incinerates the willow and, suffused with despair, freezes to death.
Ilyenko was the right director for this material, as his Earthy yet ethereal visual sense perfectly conveys the tale’s mythic grandeur. Gone is the kinetic exuberance of SHADOWS OF FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS (and most of Ilyenko’s other films), with stately nonaggressive visuals offered in its place. Ilyenko may be a bit too enamored of the ever-present trees and swampland that figure so heavily, but those Carpathian landscapes are genuinely ethereal, and enhanced by brilliantly pulled off low budget special effects.
Ilyenko was the right director for this material, as his Earthy yet ethereal visual sense perfectly conveys the tale’s mythic grandeur.
How low budget are those effects? Lukash’s werewolf transformation is accomplished entirely by movements and noises made by actor Viktor Kremlyov, who barks, howls and crawls, while the transitions between differing planes of reality are delineated by primitive yet ingenious split screen techniques.
STORY OF THE FOREST: MAVKA underwent a great deal of censorship during pre and post-production at the hands of Soviet authorities.
Credit must also go to the wistful music by Yevgeni Stankovich, and Ilyenko’s actress wife Lyudmila Efimenko, who cuts a striking, and authentically fairy-like, figure as Mavka. Efimenko headlined all her husband’s later features (starting with 1978’s PRAZDNIK PECHYONOY KARTOSHKI), but her performance as Mavka is surely the pinnacle of her film work.
As with all Ilyenko’s films, A STORY OF THE FOREST: MAVKA underwent a great deal of censorship during pre and post-production at the hands of Soviet authorities. Production was held up for over a decade, and then when the film was finally completed it was all-but buried (which explains why it’s so little known in most of the world). No, it’s not the transcendent masterpiece SHADOWS OF OUR FORGOTTEN ANCESTORS was, but MAVKA is a fascinating depiction of myth and magic in a distant land, and one of its director’s all-around finest films.
Vital Statistics
A STORY OF THE FOREST: MAVKA (LISOVA PISNYA. MAVKA)
Dovzhenko Film Studios
Director: Yuri Ilyenko
Producer: Anatoli Mamontov
Screenplay: Yuri Ilyenko
(Based on a play by Lesya Ukrainka)
Cinematography: Yuri Ilyenko
Editing: E. Sumovska
Cast: Lyudmila Efimenko, Viktor Kremlyov, Mayya Bulgakova, Ivan Mikolaychuk, Lyudmila Lobza, Boris Khmelnitskiy, Viktor Demertash, Nina Shatskaya, Svetlana Sergeyeva, Filipok Ilyenko, Vanya Khodulin