Why Ukraine? The "new" Ukrainian wave of cinema (often abbreviated "ua new") is characterized by its unflinching look at trauma, hybrid identity, and the collision of the natural with the militarized. In this context, Tarzan becomes a symbol of pre-invasion innocence—a man who never signed a treaty, never betrayed his land. Jane, then, is the post-Soviet intellectual: ashamed of her own complicity in systems (colonial, Soviet, capitalist) that exploit both nature and women.
In the century since Edgar Rice Burroughs first swung Tarzan through the public imagination, the Lord of the Apes has remained a fixed point of masculine fantasy: strong, instinctual, unburdened by social pretense. His counterpart, Jane Porter, has traditionally served as the bridge to civilization—the woman whose love reforms the beast. However, a growing body of revisionist media, including a provocative new video adaptation emerging from Ukraine’s contemporary independent film scene ("ua new"), challenges this dynamic. This new work focuses not on Tarzan’s primal power, but on —the psychological cost of loving a man who belongs to the wild. By centering Jane’s humiliation, alienation, and eventual subversion of the gaze, this adaptation transforms the jungle romance into a sharp critique of patriarchal colonial fantasy. tarzan x shame of jane x video in ua new