Cinema
Дорогою ціною
Mark Donskoy · 1957
Synopsis
In the time of serfdom, on the master's whim, the beautiful Solomiia, a serf, is married by force to a guard of the estate, while her beloved Ostap is to be made a soldier. In despair, Ostap flees towards the Danube, and Solomiia leaves her own wedding table to join him; as they cross the river, a patrol's bullet seriously wounds him, and Roma take in the two fugitives.
Context
Accused of apoliticism after a film of 1949, Donskoy was transferred as a punishment from Moscow to the Kyiv studio, where in three years he made two adaptations, one of Gorky, the other of this tale by Kotsiubynsky; the success of the latter brought him back to Moscow. Iryna Donska wrote the screenplay, Mykola Toptchii operated the camera and Vira Donska played Solomiia. The Dovzhenko Centre sees in its colours, its national motifs and its language a foretaste of the Ukrainian poetic cinema of the sixties.
Who it is for
A colour film running one hour thirty-eight minutes, a story of love and flight across the steppe and the Danube delta; the French title is not a translation of the original, which means “at a high price”.
Prizes and reception
Ranked among the hundred best Ukrainian films; according to the Dovzhenko Centre, the British academy named it the best foreign film shown in England in 1958.
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