The First Lad

The least typical of Sergei Paradjanov’s feature films. It’s a light comedy set in a Ukrainian collective or kolkhoz. The plot involves model communists Danila (a recently demobbed soldier) and Odarka (whose hair is as golden as the Ukrainian wheat) trying to get a football team started despite the general apathy of the other youngsters.Chief culprit is Yushka, a blacksmith and general jack-the-lad. He loves Odarka and she loves him, but neither is able to tell the other.Untypical: There’s comic relief from habadasher Sidor Sidorovich, whose shop gets frequent visits from the equally love smitten teacher Frosya and her horde of infants. There are ridiculously patriotic songs with lyrics about the glories of the harvest. And yet? It’s almost a musical, as I suppose all Parajanov’s films are to some extent. And it glories in the Ukrainian landscapes with its fields of corn and sunflowers and amazingly blue skies.