Product Description

Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors is a boldly conceived and astonishingly photographed blend of enchanting mythology, hypnotic religious iconography, and pagan magic. And although its unsentimental depiction of the harsh realities of Ukrainian regional history forced visionary director Sergei Pararadjanov (The Color of Pomegranates) into direct conflict with bureaucrats then controlling the Soviet film industry, the film became an international sensation when it was released in 1964. There is no devil in church, only among men. Deep in the Carpathian Mountains of 19th-century Ukraine, love, hate, life, and death among the Hutsul people are as they ve been since time began. While young Ivan s mother mourns her husband s brutal murder, Ivan is drawn to Marichka, the beautiful young daughter of the man who killed his father. But fate tragically decrees that the two lovers will remain apart. Unhappily married to another woman and cursed by a sorcerer in this life, Ivan s obsession with his lost love lures him ever closer to a reunion with Marichka in death. In this DVD edition, Kino is proud to present one of the landmarks of 1960 s world cinema in a new widescreen transfer that restores Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors in all the extravagant color, vivid tragedy, and lucid
anthropological detail that stunned audiences when it first premiered. SPECIAL FEATURES: Documentary: Andrei Tarkovsky and Sergei Paradjanov (2003, 40 min.) - Featurette: Songs of the Ukraine (1985, 8 min.) - Paradjanov Photo Album - Stills Gallery - Cast & Crew Filmographies - Trailers IN UKRAINIAN with optional ENGLISH, FRENCH or SPANISH subtitles - Dolby Digital 5.1

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43480 in DVD
• Released on: 2008-02-05
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: AC-3, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Surround Sound, Widescreen
• Original language: Ukrainian
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 92 minutes

Review
ASTONISHING... EXTRAORDINARY... One of the supreme works of Soviet Cinema. --Jonathan Rosenbaum, The Chicago Reader

Review
(Paradjanov's) Greatest Work ...full of visual surprises and fearless leaps in style. --Edward Guthman, San Francisco Chronicle

Customer Reviews

Erroneous description of this classic film
Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors (Special Edition) (1964) (Sub)
The information about this classic film posted by Amazon contains important errors of fact.
First of all, the film is NOT in Russian, but in UKRAINIAN.
Note to Amazon: PLEASE CORRECT THE LANGUAGE CLASSIFICATION!
Second: The story is not about "Russian regional history" as the writeup states. The Carpathian Mountains are nowhere near Russia. Its Hutsul people speak Ukrainian and are among the least russified in all of the former Soviet Union.
Third: What brought director Parajanov into conflict with communist authorities was not his prtrayal of harsh relities of Soviet life, but his stubborn insistence on filming his adaptation of Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky's 1911 Ukrainian-language novel in the authentic Ukrainian language of the region, and refusing to dub it into Russian.
These errors of fact mislead Amazon customers and tend to perpetuate the myth that all of the Soviet Union was Russia.

Beautiful film, bad information
I've seen this film several times, and find it powerful, beautiful moving and confusing, all at the same time. It must be experienced to be appreciated fully.

As the previous reviewer noted, the information provided by amazon is woefully inaccurate and riddled with errors. More of it is wrong than is right. The film is set in the medieval Carpathians (NOT during the 19th century). It is in Ukrainian. And it has nothing to do with "harsh realities of Russian regional history"--the Carpathian region was not a part of the Russian empire until AFTER WWII, and it neither is nor ever was ethnically Russian.

If you want accurate information about his film, I suggest you try imdb or Wikipedia instead.

My Favorite Movie of All Time (so far)
The first time I watched this movie, I had no idea what was going on. But the imagery was so interesting, I immediately rewound the tape and watched it again. The story began to take shape during the second viewing. Since then, I have watched this movie countless times, and I am still figuring out pieces of the story. This is not an "easy" movie. It does not provide a lot of information through dialogue. Most of the information is provided through imagery which is rich and thoroughly fine. If you are looking to extend your visual vocabulary, you will learn a lot from this film. Also check out any Tarchovsky film or "I Am Cuba" for similar visual masterpieces.