Koliyivshchyna: History in a minor key

Is it worth your time?

If you have a thing for historical dramas that carry the weight of a hundred-year-old museum exhibit, you might get something out of this. It’s definitely not for the casual viewer who wants a quick pacing or easy thrills. If you’re the type of person who stares at old photographs trying to figure out if the people in them look happy, you'll probably stick with it until the end.

It’s a heavy lift. Sometimes it feels like watching a history textbook that’s been left out in the rain.

The vibe

The whole thing feels like it’s vibrating with a specific, grainy intensity. There’s a scene where the peasants are gathered in a field, and for a second, I forgot I was watching a film from another era entirely. It felt like I was just standing in the mud with them.

Then, the acting hits. Some of it is so theatrical it almost breaks the spell. You’ve got people yelling at the sky with such intensity that you wonder if they’re just hungry. But that’s the charm, right? It’s not trying to be smooth.

Cinematic perspective: Exploring the visual vocabulary of Koliyivshchyna (1933) through its definitive frames.

It reminds me a bit of the frantic, slightly unhinged energy in Ludi i strasti. Not in the plot, but in that way the screen seems to struggle to hold all the anger inside it.

Little things

• The costumes have this lived-in, dirty look that makes the shiny, modern stuff look like toys.
• There’s a long, awkward silence right before a standoff that made me reach for my water.
• The way the light hits the faces in the crowd scenes makes everyone look like they’re carved out of wood.

One shot lingers on a hand gripping a pitchfork for way longer than anyone would expect. It’s oddly specific. You can tell the director was obsessed with the weight of these objects. It’s almost like the tools of the rebellion are the main characters.

Final thoughts

Don't expect a polished, symmetrical story. It’s messy. It’s got holes in the narrative that you could drive a carriage through. But there’s a pulse here. It’s an uneven, dusty, sometimes frustrating pulse, but it’s real.

It’s definitely not as sharp as the tension in A Man's Land, but it’s got a grit that stays under your fingernails. I walked away thinking more about the texture of the film than the actual story. Is that a bad thing? Probably not. 📽️