“Bitter Harvest,” bless its low-budget heart, means well.
But George Mendeluk’s film, about the Holodomor, the forced famine and starvation that killed between 7 million and 10 million Ukrainians, as well as an uninspiring romance, falls well short of its ambitions.
Set in the 1930s, the movie tells the story of Yuri (Max Irons), a gifted artist whose grandfather Ivan (Terence Stamp, who somehow wandered into the film) is a legendary warrior. But Yuri is different, his father Yaroslav (Barry Pepper) explains. He’s more adept with a paintbrush than a sword.
Yuri has loved Natalka (Samantha Barks) since they were children. Their families in the Ukraine have suffered under the Czar, but after his death they enjoy a few years of freedom. Then comes Lenin and, worse, Stalin (played by a hilariously miscast and overacting Gary Oliver, stomping around and complaining about the Ukrainians). The latter puts the squeeze on Ukraine, demanding that the farms and all they produce be put under state control, leaving the locals without food or resources. This will mean the deaths of millions, an underling whispers. “But who will ever know?” Stalin asks.
Yuri heads off to Kiev, where he enrolls in art school. But Communists are soon demanding state-approved art, and the more ambitious Yuri finds himself working in a rag-and-bone shop. He sends letters to Natalka, who is pregnant with their child, but things are getting worse everywhere. Yuri winds up in prison for stabbing an officer. Natalka, meanwhile, is menaced by the over-the-top evil Sergei (Tamer Hassan), the kommissar in charge of making the villagers’ lives miserable.
Desperate to get back to Natalka, Yuri will eventually have to put down the brush and raise up the sword, or gun (or weaponized brush, even), his warrior legacy coming to fruition.
We see the horrors of the Holodomor here and there; in one scene Yuri and a boy hide in a boxcar full of bodies stacked for removal. But for the most part Mendeluk struggles to show us the magnitude of the tragedy (and in his defense, it’s near unimaginable). The romance turns it into a soap-opera treatment, undercut by iffy acting and a story that never captures what Mendeluk is striving for.
Bill Goodykoontz, USA TODAY Network
★1⁄2
Roadside Attractions presents a film directed by George Mendeluk and written by Mendeluk and Richard Bachynsky-Hoover. Rated R (for violence and disturbing images). Running time: 103 minutes. Opens Friday at local theaters.
