Ukrainian born writer-director-actress Kira Muratova of
Romanian/Jewish descent is perhaps second to Larisa Shepitko in terms of the
all-time great female Soviet-Ukraine directors.
Though her works often were met with censorship within the Soviet Union,
she nevertheless charged ahead with numerous award-winning features ranging all
the way from 1961 with her first two features By the Steep Ravine and Our
Honest Bread. Her first solo masterpiece
Brief Encounters as well as her second solo feature The Long Farewell
were both banned by Soviet censors outright and never saw a proper
theatrical release until almost twenty years later during the Glasnost movement
relative to openness and transparency.
A dire shame such elegantly constructed character studies of
complex and strong female characters, both generously produced by Odessa Film
Studio, were withheld from the public as they’re representative of some of the
very best Eastern European portraits of women in modern Ukraine in cinema
history. Thankfully however with the
efforts of StudioCanal and The Criterion Collection who have fashioned a
two-film blu-ray set of her first two films fully restored in 4K from the
original camera negatives, bringing these underseen black-and-white drama
classics to Western viewers for the very first time.
However, despite stern fierceness her
carefully constructed world is shattered when Sasha declares he wishes to go
live with his estranged father now ex-husband of Yevgeniya. Shifting in and out of memory, dream, past
and present with varying perspectives including some rather emotional
slideshows, the film provided an unlikable portrait of Soviet Ukrainian
motherhood through the prism of a character study of a deeply troubled and
needing woman.
Between both films, Muratova asserts complicated female
perspectives, agency and sly sociopolitical critique of the very society which
fostered her characters at crossroads in the first place. Distinctly Ukrainian full of cultural
iconography including ceremonies, music and customs amid a then-modern late
1960s-early 1970s country, Muratova’s first two films again join the
aforementioned Larisa Shepitko’s The Wings for exemplifying tough,
complex but ultimately feminine characters navigating difficulties both
external and internally emotional. That
said, neither picture could be more different in what they say about Ukrainian
women at the time. Whereas the first
film functions somewhat like a Marlen Khutsiev picture, the second with its raw
performances and confrontational attitude towards the inability to let go of
maternal instincts feels closer to Shepitko for presenting worldly women who no
longer seem to fit in.
Criterion’s release of the films are splendid
and come housed with interviews with Muratova and film scholars Elena Gorfinkel
and Isabel Jacobs as well as essay writing by Jessica Kiang. Looking at them now, they remain fresh and
illuminating on the female Soviet Ukrainian perspective at a transitional time
in history and remain vital to the world cinema discourse and especially
function as a testament to the artistic might of Kira Muratova.
--Andrew Kotwicki