Remembering (in) Ukrainian cinema of the 1960s: Rolan Serhiienko's White Clouds (1968)

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article analyses Rolan Serhiienko's first full-length feature film, Bili khmary/White Clouds (1968), which has received scant critical attention to date. The film deals with the collectivization of Ukrainian land in the 1930s, as it is recollected in the 1960s. In remembering White Clouds, this article takes memory as its theme and examines how the process of remembering is represented cinematically in the film. The following questions are addressed: how does the film treat the relationship between past and present, both stylistically and conceptually; and, crucially, to whom do these memories belong? Through its treatment of time and point of view, the film encourages the viewer to participate in the remembering herself. The film can thus be seen as an example of ‘postmemorial work’ — Marianne Hirsch's term to describe the attempt to reactivate intergenerational memorial structures. As an example of a body of work known collectively as the school of Ukrainian poetic cinema, White Clouds offers insights into this generation of Ukrainian film-makers and their relationship with the past.