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I Budut Lyudy (2020)
Popular epic and hardcore nation building
This epic TV-series has its obvious qualities: The cast, the acting, the leads, costumes, the lightning, filming, editing and cinematography all expose that the budget and ambitions have been high. It aims to be popular and in terms of its dramatic and romantic qualities there is 'something for everybody'. Violence, love, hate, dance, adultery, nice folk costumes and hair, babys screaming and lovemaking in the hay. And especially the outsiders are fairly rigidly portrayed. They are bad people!!! There are of course nuances to the plot - especially when it comes to the portrait of 'our own'.
This follows from the dramatic structure and narrative. The focus is very much on the everyday lives of local common people. But the main narrative is one of 'a people', 'a nation' who - by force - are confronted with the 'outside', when the Bolcheviks 'invade'.
In this sense the series is highly political, and it obviously aims to tell a different story than the Soviet films about solidarity, bravery and optimism through hardship.
The opposition is made between the proud and well-rooted Ukrainians living in hardship and the cynical, controlling, autoritarian communist-Russians (or their local communist allies). As a non-native speaker I can't detect the dialects of the Slavic, but I suppose this opposition is made in clearer through language.
The series as such reminds me of the German 'Heimat'. Like this it wants to engage in the stories and narratives of the past, and how History has been written about central periods in the (troubled) birth (and decline) of the nation. Here the (un)birth of Ukraine.
But - opposite to the Heimat series - this one never really aims to debate the understanding of the Ukrainian past, or even to give us a nuanced picture of the past. Instead it becomes a static, romanticised picture of little Ukraine. And we must love the feudal/organic 'diversity' between rich and poor, lazy and hard-working etc. Because it is 'freedom', e.g. To love the church - as it provide 'real solace' to the suppressed Ukrainians etc. This storyline expands throughout the series as such, and leaves a bitter taste of educational manipulation especially in the last episodes - those that the reviewers here seem to like the best. A pity really. Because this also portrays a history not often told, at least I have never seen before. A couple of centuries in turmoil after the Great War, a story also of necessary modernization of a feudal, unequal and unjust society.
And perhaps the Ukranians should be excused for their need of this narrative - in times like these. But still - there is obviously so much more to say!
It's a 6/10 for it's epic and basic filmic qualities.
Folkets ven (1918)
A social drama on the manufacturing of national consent
The film depicts the frailty, hopes and challenges of the democratic and revolutionary movements of the Post-World War I era. This is also the era following the popular revision of the Constitution of 1915 in Denmark (giving vote to the common man - and woman). Still the constitution is challenged, not only by the just demands of the workers movement, but also by the attempts of the privileged classes to hold on to power and reject democratic rule (epitomized in the failed Royal coup of 1920 - just two years after this film).
Folkets ven (The Friend of the people) is a social drama illustrating the demands and struggles of workers to make proper change to the injustices and exploitation (unemployment and poverty) of the newly industrialised and still basically feudal Danish society. The perspective here, however, is thoroughly middleclass and conservative, as it advises (rather didactively) the masses and their 'freinds' the proper ways to secure the young political organisation of 'common' public interest: Through the 'rule of law' (and of the privileged men), which has so often been used against the masses.
The alternative roads are presented through the perspectives of three brothers supposedly fighting the cause of the lower class in each their own way. First, the (brutal) blacksmith Waldo wants a world revolution by way of force and violence. Second, the (cribbled) watchmaker Kurt experiences society as an ailing clockwork that simply needs to be repaired by a simple but drastic , intervention. Finally, the (calm, thoughtful and 'noble') typographer Ernst, who considers knowledge and understanding, enlightenment and education as the only right way to create change - and keep the 'mob' calm.
Ernst is persuaded by very wealthy and noble conservative editors and poiticans to act as a speaker of 'the common man' to persuade the mob to bow down to the rule of law - upheld by the police, and the respect of well-dressed and well-mannered men. Woman are 'of course' distant from the political battle - and in stead attending to and caring for other sick women and men.
The perspective is obvious and the scheme works: The bait is an appeal to unity through (more) nationalism. Not unlike the perspectives of Griffith in 'The Birth of a Nation (1915). And just as problematic in it's own Danish context: Manufacturing consent!
As a social drama this film is quite unique in Denmark for its time, and as such it is quite interesting. If you can bare with its political propaganda and its trivial and simplistic morale, this film is worth a watch.
Det bli'r i familien (1993)
Bier at her prime?
This film is about 'Family Matters' but nothing is as it seems. The narrative of the film is in many ways quite absurd - and beyond the real. The Danish title translates something like 'What stays in the Family...'- which could make you expect a classic family drama, but this is nothing of the sort, exactly because Bier is fully aware that 'family' is not what it used to be, and love is not about family alone. This is a central and reaccuring theme in Bier's films. Still, we live 'with' the (hopelessly) romantic tales of the ideal family, despite all broken hearts - of the families we live 'in'. And we can try to break out.
To make us feel the real, and seize the day, and understand the potential of following our hearts desires, Bier so often blends absurd narratives and humour into what is otherwise the tristesse of the everyday. Like a combination of Fellini and Kaurismäki. Bordering on the Carnevalesque - but ever so tender at the same time! Still, the style follows or links to a long line of Danish 'folke-komedier'.