Propala Hramota

Propala Hramota Ukrainian , The Lost Letter is a 1972 Soviet musicaltragicomedy film by Dovzhenko Film Studios in Kiev. The movie is considered a pearl of Soviet and Ukrainian cinema. The film is based on the novella by Nikolai Gogol.

The film depicts the adventures of Vasyl in sequences that are filled with Ukrainian culture, and shows Ukrainian cuisine, costumes, traditions, mystical and comedyfilled situations, anecdotes, and a plethora of obstacles which Vasyl must overcome. On his way together with an evil servant chort he comes to a river crossing where a ferry carries people from one side to another. There he finds his partner in arms, Andriy, a zaporozhian cossack. Further along the way, something happens to the papers when they stop at an inn to rest. When Vasyl and Andriy arrive in St. Petersburg, they hand over the hramota to the baroness von Likhtenberg who passes them to the empress. The documents do not carry any information and Vasyl has to leave without results.On the way home, both of them decide to shoot each other. As they are saying in unison the Nicene Creed Apostles Creed they hear a voice that identifies itself as Kudz coming from a nearby rock, saying he was the same chort and the witch turned him into a rock after he helped Vasyl. Kudz asks them to throw him in a nearby marsh so as not to cause any further harm to random travelers on the road. As Vasyl arrives with his friend near their village, Dykanka, they meet a little boy who asks them to let him go to see the cossack, Vasyl who had supposedly returned from having seen the empress. Then they arrive and are met by the rest of the village population. Moments later, everybody awaits Vasyl again by his house to tell the story of his rendezvous with the empress. In the last scene, he wishes the little boy to have a loyal horse, an open field, and always be at peoples service. The scene is accompanied by the triumphant Cossack march of the Ukrainian folkloric song about Sahaidachny. ........

Source: Wikipedia