Nyon Film Festival 2009

Jared Bloch

Sergiy Bukovsky’s, “The Living,” is a 75 minute indictment of the methodological impoverishment and starvation imposed on Ukrainian “kulaks” by the Soviet State in the 1930’s.

The film presents a chronological accounting, via diplomatic letters, of the excruciatingly purposeful suffering inflicted on Ukranian peasants, in the form of farm collectivization.

"I'm afraid to remember those times". Photo courtesy of Visions du Réel Film Festival

The anger and sadness in the faces of those who lived through this tragedy is almost unbearable to look at as they describe in minute detail their ordeal. “I’m afraid to think about, let alone remember those times,” one interviewee tells the camera.

Bukovsky’s narrative tends towards dry in its presenation of historical letters, however the film is well worth seeing if only to appreciate the cache of historical memory provided through first hand accounts from what must be octogenarian Ukrainian citizens.

For further information on this and other Stalinist era “purges”, see Martin Amis’ book, “Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million“. See also,Current Politics in Ukraine Website.

Visions du Réel Film Festival website.

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