The destiny of a genius

In all times, in any social formation, totalitarian regime leaders “knew” about culture very well and kept the culture figures they chose on a short leash, using the time-tested stick and carrot method. Humankind has lost so many geniuses without even knowing their names! And so many talented people have been denied a possibility to express themselves!

I will not delve into history, for it is a promising topic for more than one monograph. But these thoughts haunted me during and after the premiere of a new documentary film, Notebook, directed by Yulia Lazarevska, about by far the blackest years in the life of Oleksandr Dovzhenko, an undeniable genius of Ukrainian cinema. “Showered with love” by the authorities, living on Kutuzovsky Avenue in downtown Moscow, and driven to a posh Peredelkino country house on a special car, he bitterly suffered from having to keep silent and being in fact deprived of his favorite brainchild – cinema.

The script was written subtly and clearly by Serhii Trymbach, a well-known film critic and political writer, the latest James Mace Prize winner, one of the best connoisseurs of the life story and oeuvre of Dovzhenko. The film comprises the great master’s diary notes and personal correspondence that embrace the “landmark period” from 1939, when Dovzhenko was “appointed” as a role model of Soviet Ukrainianism for the western territories divided by Hitler and Stalin, the war, and the humiliating “repentance” for mistakes until his death on November 25, 1956. Without over-accentuating the watershed in the relations with the dictator and the innermost personal anxieties, the film reveals the genius’s tragic destiny.

Yulia Lazarevska has directed several documentaries about the key historical figures of Ukraine. She has a unique ability to enliven what seems to be unemotional documentary footage with bright and quite fitting touches. The cameraman Mykola Mandrych, a remarkable professional and the director’s permanent co-worker, turns ideas into visual images.

The music composed by an unsurpassable composer Valentyn Sylvestrov very naturally fits in with the footage, while the popular actor Oleksandr Vertynskyi created – very tactfully and skillfully – the master’s off-screen image, reading his texts full of pain and sufferings. The always charming Larysa Kadochnykova speaks as his wife Yulia Solntseva. The film was produced at the Kinematografist studios by a highly enthusiastic and creative team with Svitlana Stepanenko at the head.

The film’s preview drew a capacity audience at a Kyiv hall. The film has succeeded. Now it is going to be shown at festivals and in movie theaters. Will it enjoy the same success?