Canadian-made love story “Bitter Harvest” was hardly among the most anticipated movies worldwide. But it certainly was in Ukraine.
The movie features two young villagers struggling to survive in Ukraine during the Holodomor, the artificial famine created by the Soviet authorities that killed an estimated seven million Ukrainians in 1932-1933.
“Bitter Harvest” was the first attempt of Western filmmakers to bring one of the most tragic pages of Ukrainian history to the big screen.
But don’t expect the movie to provide a detailed vision of the Holodomor tragedy. George Mendeluk’s movie is more like a dynamic, cartoonish retelling of those events.
That is not to say it is bad: In fact, a movie like this is necessary to bring an underdog nation like Ukraine to the world’s mass culture, as I will explain.
Many movies have been made about the Holodomor since Ukraine gained independence 1991, and the Soviet authorities weren’t there to silence discussion of the topic anymore. Only after the fall of the Soviet Union did it become known that there was a horrifying act of genocide in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933 – and how actual history so starkly diverged from the official Stalinist explanation of “a bad grain harvest” that caused famine among millions of people in Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Now we know that the Holodomor was the mass murderer Stalin’s way of crushing a possible rebellion among Ukrainian agrarians.
From Oles Yanchuk’s violent drama about cannibalism “Golod-33” in 1991, to Oles Sanin’s epic tale of a blind Kobzar “The Guide” in 2014, Holodomor movies have all had one thing in common – a scary and depressing atmosphere of the grief and distress of people who are forced to give everything, including their lives, to the insatiable Soviet machine.
“Bitter Harvest” is a different kind of movie. It positions itself as a historically accurate drama. But those coming to the theater expecting to see a powerful story of love, honor and rebellion will be disappointed.
Disney style
“Bitter Harvest” is the story of a sensitive young artist, Yuri, who rebels against the Soviet system as he, his fiancée Natalka, and their families are forced to fight for their very lives.
However, the Soviets in the movie remind one more of the sultan’s guards from the 1992 Disney cartoon “Aladdin” – chaotic and grimacing minions who can do whatever they want, with the approval of the almighty Stalin.
Volodymyr Viatrovych, the director of the Ukrainian Institute of National Remembrance, described the movie as a “graphic novel,” – a comic book.
“This movie provides you with the dynamic and vivid image that can get people who haven’t heard about the Holodomor interested in that topic. It is the West’s first step towards experiencing our past, and the scary and strange word of the Holodomor,” Viatrovych said.
I agree. Although “Bitter Harvest” was slammed by the critics, got 9 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, and with its $20 million budget made just $200,000 on its first weekend, I still advise everyone to go and see it.
Good actors in a bad play
Unlike Ukrainian movies about the Holodomor, “Bitter Harvest” uses a tried-and-true formula for success in the West – well-known, good-looking Anglophone actors in leading roles, some love scenes, a lot of action and explosions, and dynamic and colorful fighting scenes.
I was pleased to see Hollywood heavyweights, like Steven Spielberg’s “Saving Private Ryan” star Barry Pepper, and Terence Stamp, a star of more than 60 Hollywood movies, portraying brave Ukrainian warriors Yaroslav (Yuri’s father) and Ivan (Yuri’s grandfather).
Yaroslav (Barry Pepper ) speaks to his son Yuri. ( Courtesy — Bitter Harvest Facebook)
British actor Max Irons plays the protagonist, Yuri, a young villager with artistic skills, who turns into an avenger after Soviet soldiers, led by their evil commander Sergei (Tammer Hassan), seize his village of Smila and try to force locals to join the “kolkhoz,” – a state-run collective farms.
However, the actors didn’t shine brightly. I can’t blame them: The script was mediocre and made the characters seem flat and inconsistent.
The Soviets are one-dimensionally portrayed as ugly monsters that kill for pleasure. The movie’s Stalin lives in a luxury apartment where he orders his minions to kill the rebellious Ukrainians. He looks like a typical Bond villain, rather than the chilling psychopath that decades of historical research has revealed him to have been.
Good old action
The movie’s action scenes reminded me of the good old 1990s, when nobody counted bullets.
In one of the scenes, the protagonist, Yuri, makes his horse jump gracefully over a wagon full of Soviets – in slow motion, of course – and he then throws a Molotov cocktail into the wagon. There is a massive blast, but Yuri is unharmed. Neither is the horse.
That said, I still liked “Bitter Harvest” despite its flaws.
For Ukrainians, the Holodomor is a painful topic to discuss. As a result, Ukrainian filmmakers shoot Holodomor movies that are tragic pronouncements, too dark or complicated for a mass (and foreign) audience to properly comprehend.
This is precisely why I liked Mendeluk’s movie.
It attempts to put a beautiful Ukrainian rebel holding a gun and fighting for freedom on the same stage as Hollywood underdogs like Django from “Django Unchained” (2012). It mates Ukraine’s history with mass culture – to the benefit of both.
And at the same time it tells a story that has long gone untold. It will be told again, in better movies than “Bitter Harvest.”
But for now, this movie gets the job done.
