The Enchanted Desna (1964) review

Solntseva, working off an autobiographical screenplay by her late husband and collaborator Aleksandr Dovzhenko, creates a fantastical version of his childhood growing up in Ukraine: playing in the garden, having a grandfather who "looked like God" (but reeked of the devil's cabbage), admiring his father (who dresses shoddily) and experiencing the ghastliness of war.  This clearly comes from a very personal place and the color cinematography is wonderful (swaying grass, morphing sky ... talking horses?), but it's also overexuberant, willfully obtuse and might only appeal to those who grew up in similar conditions - trying to force something to be "poetic" is usually not a wise decision.  Keeping with tradition, there's an abrupt flash-forward at the conclusion that shows the strength and resolve of the Soviet spirit ... but if you flash-forward yet again to 2022 with the provoked but illegal invasion by Putin's Russia, that tells quite a different story about the region.