The Washington Post, October 2, 2002; Page C01, abridged

"A Prayer for Hetman Mazepa," Ukraine's biggest-budget feature film since the nation declared its independence in 1991, boasts little of the subtlety of highbrow post-Soviet cinema from Russia and none of the escapism mass-produced by Hollywood. It will not stir young girls like "Titanic" or young boys like another "Star Wars" instalment.

For Ukraine, "Prayer" has become part of the ongoing search for national identity in a place still rediscovering a history wiped out by generations of foreign rule.

Illienko put together "A Prayer for Hetman Mazepa" only by enlisting help of the government, which contributed a share of the $2.3 million production costs, a fortune by Ukrainian standards. The movie debuted at the Berlin Film Festival earlier this year and premiered in the United States at a showing at Harvard University in August. After months of hype and debate, it hits the screens in Ukraine for the first time this month.

"Prayer" may confuse foreign audiences. It is not a linear narrative intended to represent reality, but rather a 152-minute "phantasmagoric dream of history," as Illienko put it, a circus hall of mirrors in which characters and scenes are twisted, warped, distorted. The special effects are comically crude, almost as if in a stage play -- a tide of red paint to represent blood, porcelain statues mixed in with real actors to represent a battlefield of corpses.

Reviews have been mixed. "Variety", the bible of the American film industry, panned it. While finding "moments of strange beauty in the midst of all the cacophony," it complained that Illienko had shown "an almost amateurish disregard for audience sensibilities" and declared that "his indigestible style here dooms what could have been an impressive saga."

A scholar who teaches Ukrainian at a Harvard summer institute, described it as "a kind of Freudian foray into the human psyche," though he too lamented that it was not a more reality-based portrayal akin to Mel Gibson's "Braveheart." Yet he wrote that the desire for entertainment "does not override the desire to understand exactly why Ukrainians seem so doomed to relive the same national failure over and over again."