Just as much an essential piece of historiography as it is a poetic, ruminative look at the effects of folklore on the Eastern European condition, Jessica Oreck’s eminently perceptive documentary The Vanquishing of the Witch Baba Yaga serves a narrative double-duty. As a visual introduction to the ways and means of those living in such countries as Ukraine, Romania, Hungary and Poland, Oreck’s film is a delicately shot marvel. We see lumberjacks felling trees, families hunting mushrooms, city folk wandering…
