THE ENCHANTED DESNA
Symposium
The work of Oleksandr Dovzhenko has a privileged place in Godard’s cinematic pantheon, and this extends to THE ENCHANTED DESNA, which he counted as his favourite film of the year in 1965. Made nine years after the Ukrainian filmmaker’s death by his widow Yulia Solntseva, on the basis of Dovzhenko’s childhood memories, the film is replete with kaleidoscopic imagery of the Desna river, seen first through the eyes of the protagonist Sashko as a six-year-old boy, and then as a Red Army colonel in charge of liberating his native village from Nazi occupation during World War II.
The work of Oleksandr Dovzhenko has a privileged place in Godard’s cinematic pantheon, and this extends to THE ENCHANTED DESNA, which he counted as his favourite film of the year in 1965. Made nine years after the Ukrainian filmmaker’s death by his widow Yulia Solntseva, on the basis of Dovzhenko’s childhood memories, the film is replete with kaleidoscopic imagery of the Desna river, seen first through the eyes of the protagonist Sashko as a six-year-old boy, and then as a Red Army colonel in charge of liberating his native village from Nazi occupation during World War II.
