Ukrainian Rhapsody

During his early career at Dovzhenko Studios, Sergei Parajanov invested the period’s folksy scripts with his own magic. “The most stylistically complicated of his early works, Ukrainian Rhapsody was inspired by Ukrainian naïve art and folk songs. Oksana, an opera singer, lost traces of her beloved Anton during the battles of World War II; after years of misery, the paths of the lovers unexpectedly cross again. This mixture of musical, romance, and war drama revealed Parajanov’s courageous, unique approach to film language, even while remaining within the socialist realism tradition” (Oleksandr Teliuk).