“September 1939. Several weeks were left until the invasion of Soviets troops and occupation of West Ukraine.” Such a non-fairy epilogue finishes Hutsulka Ksenia – a film-musical which has been recently released.
Musical film is a vile construction, given our context. Since there’s nothing more dated, bulkier and pedestrian than layered “musical-dramatical” plays and the same film. Especially when the action of Yaroslav Barnych’s operetta “Hutsulka Ksenia” unfolds in the Carpathian village, among Hutsul exoticism, rubbed by the generation of directors to the level of stereotype.
On the other hand, the musical is a genre which is badly presented in the contemporary national cinema. That is, Olena Demianenko, originally from Lviv, (she was born in 1966, graduated from the directing faculty at Kyiv National Ivan Karpenko Kary University in 1990) had an opportunity to start from the scratch. And she used it.
Shot from the film Hutsulka Ksenia
According to the plot, a group of Americans arrives at hotel “Hoverla’s House” in Vorokhta: businessman Mike Dedeliuk (Ihor Tsishkevych), his sister Helen, his romantic niece Mary (Kateryna Molchanova) and his nephew Yaro (Max Lozynsky). They have a super important and delicate mission. Yaro’s father – Mike’s brother – left the will which says that his son would inherit million dollars if he married a conscious Ukrainian. Mike’s fee is 100000. However, Yaro stubbornly pays no attention to potential brides.
At the same time, a weird phenomenon is regularly seen in Vorokhta: in the evenings, in the mountains, from the light of unknown origin, a spirit of infernal Hutsul girl wakes up that might have caused the deaths of several boys.
Shot from the film Hutsulka Ksenia
In fact, the plot is simple. The fellow has to get married, the uncle to enrich. To crown it all, Ivan Synytsa (Oleh Stefan), an adventurous hotel worker was added, his smart and attractive niece Ksenia (Varvara Lushchyk), a weirdo-scientist, professor Zelinsky (Olivier Bonjour) who, sure thing, studies butterflies, running on the valleys with a landing net and numerous Hutsul people, dressed in a new, spick-and-span authentic garments.
Shot from the film Hutsulka Ksenia
When all houses seemed to be recently built, all costumes, including the sheepherders, seemed to be sewed yesterday – and not for working in the pastures but for a Sunday fair – such a sideshow may immediately arise some questions. But the musical is a rakish and conditionally restricted genre.
There’s another problem with the film and it is, unfortunately, traditional for us: the work of actors. In most of the conversation scenes, the performers tend to overplay due to which almost all dialogues sound, to tell you the truth, rather fake.
But again, the musical is not about chit-chats. When it comes to the songs and dances, everything changes magically.
Shot from the film Hutsulka Ksenia
It’s well seen that Demianenko attentively studied the experience of Broadway musical. But the performance doesn’t look second-hand because, firstly, it is organically embedded in the plot as the continuation of relationships of the characters or certain situations and, secondly, they are multitude and qualitatively prepared – it is a so-called film inside the film, which is at the same time absolutely holistic.
Of course, Demianenko had a kicker which she aptly used – a cult band, freak-cabaret Dakh Daughters. This stormy sextet is not just musicians, they are professional actresses, what the director bears in mind. Every appearance of Dakh Daughters in the frame is a small holiday, starting from the gorgeous opening act – “Hutsulka Ksenia” tango with the full hall of passionately dancing Hutshul people. Moreover, this company adds to the film something that balances its pathetic distortions – that is a bunch of irony and self-irony. The appearance of DakhaBrakha with its catchy “Carpathian rap” works to increase a degree of musical sarcasm.
But it’s worth repeating, the performances with the participation of the rest of the actors aren’t worse: a thorough vocal-choreographic preparation is seen.
Shot from the film Hutsulka Ksenia
In the end, we have a colorful, swift, bright show without obvious violations of good taste. That is, we have something that our cinema industry hasn’t learned to produce yet.
Olena Demianenko can be praised: she has shot first in the history of independency musical and we aren’t ashamed of it.
Moreover, she managed to render what she said to me in personal conversation: the feeling of the last ray of the sun before the “iron curtain” is lowered.
It turned out that our arduous history can be told this way too.
Dmytro Desyateryk, The Day – specially for opinionua.com