Family Portrait In Black And White (2012)
Average Rating: 6.6/10
Reviews Counted: 10
Fresh: 9 | Rotten: 1
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: 6.9/10
Critic Reviews: 5
Fresh: 5 | Rotten: 0
No consensus yet.
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Average Rating: 3.4/5
User Ratings: 82
My Rating
Movie Info
Family Portrait in Black and White follows a passionate Supermom, Olga Nenya, during three turbulent years that see her brood of 17 foster children grow into rambunctious teenagers. Olga does not see color or creed of her foster children of whom 16 are bi-racial, results of amorous relationships between local Ukrainian girls and African students. As a single mother, Olga fights tooth and nail to keep her family together and to give it strength and support with sometimes overbearing control.
Jul 13, 2012 Limited
Independent Pictures
- Official Site
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All Critics (10) | Top Critics (5) | Fresh (9) | Rotten (1)
It's a fascinating story, fascinatingly told.
Top CriticFrustrating, but it gets high marks for honesty.
Riveting viewing.
Though only 85 minutes, the film captures an entire, bewilderingly extended family and way of life inside a sturdy frame.
Looks at a Ukrainian family of one single mom and a huge brood of children and finds that love grows exponentially.
The Old Woman Who Lived In A Shoe, anyone? But where the film leads as if by chance in a surprising second direction, is an ideological conflict running parallel to racial issues. Namely, this mom's post-Soviet longing for allegiance to the collective.
A documentary about the refusal of one woman to cater to the prejudices of Ukrainian society and an inspiration to all of us in a badly decomposing civilization.
Portrait In Black And White tries to capture the dynamic between Nenya and her children, as well as their family and the hostility of neighbors and government bureaucrats, but the footage doesn't cut together well.
Julia Ivanova doesn't judge her subject, refusing to see her through the eyes of a presumably better-off first-world citizen.
It should be incumbent on director Julia Ivanova to provide focus. Instead she is all over the narrative maps, finding scattered dots and leaving the connections to the viewer.
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