An adventurous prankster and fabulator in real life, Parajanov did not fully display this creative facet in his cinema. Pershyi parubok remained his only direct involvement with comedy, although one can find certain humorous touches in all of his subsequent films.
Parajanov’s first solo film is a tribute to his teacher, Ukrainian director Ihor Savchenko, who pioneered the collective farm comedy genre with his 1934 film Accordion (Garmon), about the consciousness-raising power of music.
Pershyi parubok also deals with the leisure time of the collective farm youth, but in the spirit of the thaw, the rise of consciousness is achieved through the introduction of sports and topped off by marriage. The wayward mechanic Yushka (Hryhorii Karpov) is secretly in love with the Komsomol secretary Odarka (Liudmyla Sosiura), who shows few direct signs of reciprocity, not out of lack of interest, but out of a dutifulness that turns out to be not so robust in the end. Parajanov peppered the film with witty quotes and inventive gags, creating a layered texture that subverts the formulaic story. Despite its many departures from the popular genre formula the film became the biggest commercial success of Parajanov’s entire career, generating 21.7 million admissions.

Olga Briukhovetska