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| Images Courtesy of Dovzhenko Film |
The third feature film of Soviet Ukrainian born
writer-director Viktor Ivanov, the screwball romantic musical dramedy За
двома зайцями or Chasing Two Hares from 1961, is widely regarded in
its native country as one of the all-time shining pearls of Ukrainian
cinema. Championed and ushered in by
Ukrainian cinema giant Alexander Dovzhenko as well as Russian-Latvian film
legend Sergei Eisenstein, the ‘one in a million’ director despite uphill
battles with Soviet authorities over adapting Ukrainian playwright Mykhailo
Starytsky’s work from text to screen turned over one of the country’s most
commercially successful and beloved films.
Originally intended primarily for Ukrainian viewership before box office
numbers prompted an all-Russian language Union overdub obscuring the native dialogue
intonation, the Ukrainian language version was thought to be lost for half a
century until the original track was rediscovered in Mariupol in 2013. Though this version isn’t easy to obtain at
the moment without perusing YouTube, one hopes some day a boutique label will
pick up and re-release this due proper.
19th century Kyiv, dandy socialite barber Svyryd Holokhvosty
(Oleg Borisov) fritters away his life savings gambling and is forced to close his
barbershop. In a self-made bind, Svyryd by
pure chance overhears a wealthy Mr. Sirko (Mykola Yakovenko) is offering up ten
thousand rubles for marriage to his unkempt frumpy daughter Pronya (Marharyta
Krynytsyna). Seeing a way out of debt he
agrees to marry the woman and even dupes a German creditor into paying for the
wedding. Mid-stride through Saint
Volodymyr Hill Park strutting off his fancy new suit before his friends, he
catches the flirtatious eyes of Halya (Nataliya Naum) before being warded off
by her jealous boyfriend Stepan (Anatoliy Yurchenko).
After a night at the movies with Pronya he falsely
proclaims his love for her but then brags to his buddies once he marries her he’ll
engage in extramarital affairs after getting the money. To make matters worse for himself, Svyryd
bumps into Halya again claiming to be a wealthy heir and after trying to hug
her, the girl’s mother intervenes and threatens him by forcing him on the Saint
Andrew’s Church steps to submit to marrying Halya. Neither side of this saga is aware of Svyryd’s
double-life courtship of both ladies, but we the audience know full well and
the tragicomic hilarity only ensues from here.
Playful, screwball, musical and brimming from every corner
of the frame with Ukrainian culture and iconography in what is ostensibly a
snapshot of early modernity in Kyiv, from the locations throughout the streets
of the Podil to the period makeup by A. Dubchak, costumes by Lidiya Bajkova and
arresting production design by Iosif Yutsevich, Chasing Two Hares is
like a whirlwind of period romantic tragicomedy. At once a fable and cavalcade of Ukrainian
folk songs and dances and portrait of early life through the lens of a self-serving
rude double-crosser, the music for the film composed by Vadym Homolyaka with
songs and lyrics by Yevhen Kravchenko gives the promenade through Kyiv a
whimsical energy with sparkling 1.33:1 cinematography by Vadym Illenko who captures
exterior vistas overlooking the city and lived-in interiors with finesse.
Oleg Borisov as Svyryd the ‘Hollow-Headed’
dandy barber wooing two different women at the same time for vastly different yet
intertwined reasons makes the antiheroic schmuck kind of lovable. We know this can’t end well but we have so
much fun seeing Svyryd trying to play two hearts simultaneously. Marharyta Krynytsyna is hilarious as the
unsightly yet well-to-do Pronya being duped into a marriage for money while Nataliya
Naum as Halya is radiant and sympathetic.
Still at heart the film’s real star of this show is Kyiv itself seen at
a cultural and artistic height of Ukrainian cinema as seen through the
landscapes, city and the people thriving within it.
Prior to rediscovery of the film’s original undubbed
language track, in 1999 Viktor Ivanov, the cast and crew were all posthumously
awarded the Dovzhenko State Prize of Ukraine for what is regarded even more so
now as an extraordinary portrait of Kyiv.
Not long after the awards, a monument to the main characters was erected
on Andriyivskyi Descent in 1999 by architect Volodymyr Skulsky. Ten years later in Cherkasy near the central
market the owners of the ‘House of Fashion’ erected another monument to Svyryd
and Pronya, a further testament to the film’s enduring popularity and intrinsic
significant cultural value it maintains.
That the final long thought to be lost components to this pearl of Soviet
Ukrainian period musical tragicomedy resurfaced in 2013 only further cements Chasing
Two Hares’ status as not only one of the country’s most important films but
also of world cinema. A showcase of the
city steeped in the past whose waves still ripple through the silver screen to
this very day, it remains a valuable life lesson as well as a playful entertainment
immortalizing Mykhailo Starytsky’s distinctive play on film for generations to
come.
--Andrew Kotwicki