BITTER HARVEST
Canada, 2017, 103 minutes, Colour.
Max Irons, Samantha Barks, Aneurin Barnard, Barry Pepper, Terence Stamp, Tamer Hassan.
Directed by George Mendeluk.
This is what one might call a very worthy film and some audiences around the world have considered it very important that audiences should be introduced to this story of Ukraine, Stalinist oppression, the Communist tactic of famine in 1932 and the consequences for Ukraine.
As the film released in 2017, one wonders what the intention of the filmmakers was – more than probably a Ukrainian stance against the contemporary Russian regime, the invasions by Vladimir Putin, the hostility towards Russia, the feel for Ukrainian independence, and are calling on a significant episode in the past for boosting morale in the 21st-century. And, to that extent, Bitter Harvest is successful.
It was filmed in Ukraine which also gives the film an authentic and some power.
On the other hand, while the film is worthy, and has an emotional impact as well its propaganda effect, it is not the best written or directed film which is a danger in undermining the power of the message. Some of the dialogue is very conventional, familiar and expected, lessening the impact of the characters and action. Another difficulty is that the characters are types that are expected.
The opening of the film takes the audience back to 1917, the end of the reign of Tsars, the oppression in Ukraine, the rise in takeover of the Bolsheviks, the execution of the Tsar and his family. The centre of the film is a village, the focus on a young boy and girl, the attraction, as well as the ordinary range of citizens, farmers and workers, family members, including a warrior uncle played by Terence Stamp. As the action moves into the 1920s, the situation in the Ukraine and the now satellite countries is becoming more dire, the Bolsheviks and ruthless control, merciless military men, putting into practice Stalinism and rigid control of the countries of the Soviet Union.
There are some sequences set in Moscow and glimpses of Stalin working with his associates, smiling, ruthless.
The young boy and the girl are grown-up, now Max Irons and Samantha Barks. With the presence of the Russian military, and the task of making sure that every farmer now belongs to the Collective, there is a great deal of fighting, a film of action, but also of intrigue, of cruelty towards women, and the men taking to the fields, uprisings, vicious reprisals.
There is a sadness about the relationship between the young man and woman and the continued frustrations, fuelling audience antipathy about the cruelty that the Russians impose on the villagers.
The name given to the desperate famine engineered by the Russians is called Holodomor. It is not as well-known as other famines and genocides in the early part of the 20th century and those who are supportive of Ukraine are very glad that this film is dramatises this history, the suffering, acknowledging the past – but, it would seem, reminding audiences how relevant it is to the present.
1. A Ukrainian story? 20th century? The suffering of Ukraine? The parallels with the experience of the 21st-century? Film of history, of propaganda?
2. The use of locations, the Ukrainian countryside? The Village, Kiev, Moscow? The different periods? The musical score?
3. Audience knowledge about this history of Ukraine? Of the Holodomor? 20th century atrocities? Soviets, style and? The building up of the Soviet Union?
4. 1917, Ukraine, the village, farmers, families, young children and their attachment to each other? The rule of the Tsar, harshness? The change in 1917, the death of the Tsar and his family, the Bolsheviks and their taking over, the rule, cruelty?
5. The consequences of the Russian Revolution, end of the period of th e Tsar, the Bolshevik takeover, the occupation of Ukraine, Stalin and the plans for the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 30s?
6. The young artist, artist and his skills, then to Moscow? His revolutionary friends, their speeches? Deaths?
7. The young woman, remaining, the privations, love for the artist, her being oppressed by the military leader, exploited?
8. In the village, harshness towards the farmers, the pressure to become part of the Collective? Stalinism? The reactions, Revolution, fighting?
9. The glimpses of Stalin, the 1930s, the meetings in Moscow, his policies?
10. The heroics in the village, the suffering, the executions?
11. The father, his death, farmers, the uprisings? The grandfather, the warrior, the hero, fighting and his death?
12. The military leader, cruel and oppressive? The thousands dying?
13. The return home, fighting, the artist finding young boy, the escape to the river?
14. The film as memory, history, propaganda?
