Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Alicia I love this movie so much

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Cooktopi The acting in this movie is really good.

Will E Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors was a nice film that made for a really unique viewing experience. It tells the life story of a boy named Ivan as he grows up and enters two defining romantic relationships, the second of which brings about his untimely demise. Shadows caught my attention for its engaging camera work within the first half of the film, where the camera's movement was incredibly intense and really brought the film to life. While in the second half of the film the camera is far more static, early on the camera did a few really distinctive things. First, it was continually unsteady, when it wasn't whipping us rapidly around the scene; I found that this caused an exhilarating disorienting effect. Also, while Ivan was still a child the camera would often film from a child's perspective, at knee level, looking up to adults that were having a discussion, which I found to be interesting. The landscape shots that were captured were extremely beautiful and later in the film, the camera did have some of the "running" motion that was seen in The Cranes Are Flying, though this time it was not from the perspective of any character. In another similarity to Cranes, as well as Ivan's Childhood, there was a major tree motif within the film. Shadows reminded me of a silent film at times with the lack of dialogue and the style of acting that was present, though this is not a knock in anyway, in fact I found it to be quite beautiful. The use of colors to express emotional states is also added to the quality of the film, as did the richness of the color when it was present. Shadows brought an intense nostalgic quality to the screen and is defined by how great of a visual experience it is.

Nate J Paradzhanov's Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors has a lot going on. The story is not complex – a young Ukrainian peasant (Ivan) falls in love with the daughter of the man who murdered his father, and struggles in an unhappy marriage with different woman after his love dies tragically – but it is by no means easy to watch. The cinematographic strategies ignore the standards of Socialist Realism; the shooting techniques vary wildly with each scene, and the film actually transitions to black-and-white for a period. Shots come from below the actors, high in the air, spinning with dancers or sprinting with horses. The effect is very voyeuristic; we see lovers screened through a lattice of branches and leaves, and in one scene, what appears to be a first-person shot from the eyes of the Ivan going prone at the sight of a deer is muddled when he appears in the shot, making one suddenly very aware of the cameraman's presence. This documentary feel permeates the film – the elaborate costumes, the nearly constant presence of folk music, and the extreme attentiveness to details of ritual and labor have a completely immersive effect – one gets a real sense of the village culture. Paradzhanov also has a strange predilection for recurring motifs: three horn-players are shown repeatedly, a necklace is torn from a naked chest in two different scenes, Ivan's brother and lover are buried with identical birch crosses on different hilltops. These subtle but unmistakable recurrences, tied with the progression from Ivan's childhood to adulthood, keep one mentally tied to the story, despite Ivan's general muteness. In a creative opposition to the relative lack of dialogue, Paradzhanov frequently accompanies scenes with narrative descriptions from various participants, as if talking to a friend, after the fact. The film is not without flaws; some alienating aspects of Russian avant-garde cinema are present, at certain points it is unclear how or why scenes are occurring. Intertitles are sometimes present to demystify the action, but the film is, for lack of a better word, difficult to watch. However, the beauty and attention to detail, as well as the almost astonishing variety in thematic elements and camera-work, make this film impressive and worth one's time.

ksandness I first saw this film in 1973 when it was relatively new, and one of my most vivid memories of it was the director's marvelous use of rich colors. The colors were still pretty intense when I saw the film again in about 1979.Then I saw it at the Portland Art Museum in about 2002, and I was disappointed to see how much the colors had faded. A friend who had not seen it before agreed that the photography was excellent overall, that the soundtrack of folk music was thrilling, and that the story was reminiscent of magical realism. But the colors had all gone drab.I hope that whoever is doing digital restoration these days has this movie on their list.

manuel corbelli Well, i don't really think this movie is the masterpiece most critics say it is, first of all because, according to me, you can hardly feel a sort of empathy towards the two main characters, their acting is quite poor and they always seem pretty distant, like if they were images more than characters. Moreover, the extreme beauty of some images, the camera "overwork" compared to the poverty of the acting and the lack of in-depth of the characters, makes the film look magnificent but also formalist, "manieriste" at the same time. Very interesting to watch, but most of the time emotionally dull and boring.. As a consequence, even the "maestria" of the camera get sometimes annoying.. (i'm not a native English-speaker... i wish i could tell it in better words..)