BACK IN TIME - THE 1910'S - "AND QUIET FLOWS THE DON"

I am happy to report that after much effort, I am beginning to stem my “wholesale” film watching tendencies. Take this little gem for instance. Well the point is, it is NOT a little gem; at 330 minutes long it is divided into three parts. I watched it in three days despite the temptation and am happy to say it was the RIGHT choice. Each part is about 100 minutes long, the length of a decent film and besides, so much is going on that you need the time to “digest” it all so to speak. Having shared this little personal triumph with you, I will now get on with the film.
Now, this is an adaptation from the Nobel winning novel of the same name by the Russian writer Sholokhov. I am not too worried about it being an adaptation though. It is a Russian adaptation and it was shot in 1957 and 1958; not long after the events that were depicted so we can imagine that between the book and the film we have before us quite a realistic picture of life in rural Russia at the beginning of the century. The story is set in a little Cossack village. Traditions are strong and ways of life have been handed down for generations unchanged. The year is 1914; the First World War hasn’t begun yet. Scandal hits when married woman Akseniya openly starts having an affair with Grigory a hot headed young Cossack known for his emotions and temper. Before they can think how to put their lives in order though, the war strikes and shortly afterwards, the Soviet revolution. The Great War, the internal struggles that continue long into 1919 throw our heroes and their fates around like toys; death is everywhere as neighbors are set against each other along the lines of “white” and “red”. As the entire village struggles to find its place in the new order ,can true love triumph over it all? Or is there no place for such emotions in the new world order?...
This film touched me on many levels. First of all, to restate what I said in the introduction, it was shot merely 40 years after the events described. So the whole thing was pretty much part of living memory at the time. There is one scene, for instance, of the Cossack battalion charging across the plains. Now in case you didn’t know, the Cossacks have great renown as warriors and horsemen. They charged, on horseback issuing war cries and wielding long swords. Such a sight is part of period drama for us now, but at the time, they actually remembered what this looked like. It’s as close as we will ever get to seeing such things and I think this is very sad.
The story also describes wonderfully how the common people are tossed about in turmoil, lives are ruined and destroyed as great men argue with great words… The chaos brought by the revolution is concretely Russian here but the emotion can be transposed to any country in the world and any time of political turmoil… I cried desperately on more than one occasion during the film.
I have to say though; there is a slightly more personal reason too for my liking this film. My great grandfather was Russian. At the time of the communist revolution of 1917, he and his family were what is called “kulags” ; they were landowners; the owners of a big farm with many workers on it. The communists didn’t like the idea as you can well imagine. My great grandfather and one of his brothers escaped to Turkey to save themselves. They were a large family (9 siblings in total) but my great grandfather never saw his parents or his other brothers and sisters again. Some years later, he fell out with his brother too and they didn’t speak to each other for the rest of their lives. However, the story doesn’t end that sadly. He fell in love you see, the real deal too, converted to Islam and got married. They had a son (my grandfather) who in turn had children of his own and Ayza (we think this is how his name would be spelt in the Latin alphabet) spent his twighlight years playing with his grandchildren and telling them stories of the big farm in Crimea.
Unfortunately, no one in the family remembers Ayza (later Ali Rıza Efendi)’s Russian patronymic or surname, but we do have a picture of him and his young wife in the sitting room. I thought of him a lot as I watched this film, hence the short biography. This post is dedicated to his memory…