the stone flower
|
|
THE STONE FLOWER / KAMENNY TSVETOK
USSR, 1946; 83m
Set in the Ural Mountains, Ptushko's dreamlike,
visually ravishing fable follows a melancholy young stone-carver (Vladimir
Druzhnikov) whose talents attract the attention of the mystical Queen
of Copper Hill (Tamara Makarova); she seduces him into visiting
her dazzling underground world, where the carver begins
sculpting an enormous flower out of shimmering stone. Based on Pavel Bazhov's
folktale The Malachite Box, THE STONE FLOWER was Ptushko's first great
artistic and popular success, combining a hypnotic, almost religious
intensity with images of stunning, supernatural splendor - Paradjanov's
Color of Pomegranates meets Bava's Hercules in the Haunted World.
Russia's first full-color feature, and winner of the International Prize for
Color at the Cannes Film Festival.
SADKO
USSR, 1953; 79m
An oddly Russian Sinbad, Sadko, seeks to bring happiness to his people
first by trying to give money and goods to the poor, then by seeking out
the Blue Bird of Happiness. His voyage takes him to faraway lands, and
eventually to India and Egypt. Passing foreign landscapes makes him
homesick for Novgorod and Lubava, the girl he left behind. Before he can
return he must still the tempestuous ocean waters by paying a tribute to
the angry Tsar of the Ocean. Upon his return to Novgorod Sadko announces
that there is no happiness greater than that of being at home. The two
set pieces that made a mark in film history are the underwater domain of
the Tsar of the Ocean and especially the golden temple of the Indian
maharajah. A fantastical scene that always burns itself into the
viewer's memory is the inner chamber where the Phoenix is kept, a
shimmering half-bird, half-woman, trapped inside a maharajah's gem-like
palace. Oddly enough, 22-year old Francis Ford Coppola was assigned to
recut and dubb Sadko for its American version, which came out as The
Magic Voyage of Sinbad.
THE NEW GULLIVER / NOVY GULLIVER
USSR, 1935; 68m
One of the first full-length animated films made anywhere in the world,
THE NEW GULLIVER tells the story of Petya (Vladimir Konstantinov), a
young Soviet pioneer who falls asleep reading Swift's Gulliver's Travels
- and awakens in a surreal Lilliput, updated to include jazz bands,
mechanized tractors and (in the best revolutionary spirit) a
miniaturized workers' proletariat, who rise up with the help of the
giant Petya! Ptushko's first feature as director is an astounding hybrid
of stop-motion animation (over 3,000 separate figures were used) and
live-action footage.
|
