Parajanov was inspired by Mykhailo Kotsiubynsky's classic novella telling a Hutsul story placed (like all Hutsul stories) in a world apart, with certitudes slippering toward a universe of dreams and tales becoming now and then certitudes (to turn then back, as flash ghosts do). A strange world revealing at every turn long forgotten meanings, sometimes reassuring, some other times nightmarish.
There is an English translation (published for the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies by Ukrainian Academic Press), maybe there are also some others. As I have a particular interest for the Hutsul ways, I read several books with short stories written by a Romanian author, Casian Balabasciuc, and I warmly reccomend them: his stories paint a fantastic world, and they do it with deep knowldege.
Coming now back to the movie, the title describes very well, I think, Parajanov's credo: if we want to understand our true identity, we need to access the world of our ancestors; that world is hidden beneath the traditions, that act like shadows; thus we arrive at our inner truth only by crossing the layers of tales and legends, croyances and superstitions.
Is this world of ancestors the Paradise Lost? Not at all. Like in today's world, you find there the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. It doesn't matter: it's essentially your world, your reality, your true meaning of life.
And it's the same regardless of the region where you are from, for the Hutsuls of the Carpathians, as well as for the Georgians, Armenians or Azeris of the Caucasus.
There is an English translation (published for the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies by Ukrainian Academic Press), maybe there are also some others. As I have a particular interest for the Hutsul ways, I read several books with short stories written by a Romanian author, Casian Balabasciuc, and I warmly reccomend them: his stories paint a fantastic world, and they do it with deep knowldege.
Coming now back to the movie, the title describes very well, I think, Parajanov's credo: if we want to understand our true identity, we need to access the world of our ancestors; that world is hidden beneath the traditions, that act like shadows; thus we arrive at our inner truth only by crossing the layers of tales and legends, croyances and superstitions.
Is this world of ancestors the Paradise Lost? Not at all. Like in today's world, you find there the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly. It doesn't matter: it's essentially your world, your reality, your true meaning of life.
And it's the same regardless of the region where you are from, for the Hutsuls of the Carpathians, as well as for the Georgians, Armenians or Azeris of the Caucasus.