A Beginner's Guide to Soviet Fantasy Cinema

This video serves as a beginner’s guide to fantasy films made in the Soviet Union. Filmmakers discussed include Aleksandr Rou, Aleksandr Ptushko, and Lev Atamanov.

You can watch my beginner’s guide to Soviet animated cinema here:

or my video on Soviet science fiction films here:

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0:00 Intro/Aleksandr Rou
9:37 Aleksandr Ptushko
15:51 Mark Zakharov/etc.
18:17 Tolkien
19:35 Animation

[Ostara]

I grew up in East Germany (post 1990) and loved watching the Russian fairytales and love watching them to this day. They're still running on TV around christmas every year. The animated Tsar Saltan from 1984 was one of my first animated films I watched. I love that the art style looks so elegant. Luckily I found the DVD, so I can still watch it.

[knighttemplaroftentacult]

Soviet era movies and cartoons are an absolute Gem of the cinematography. I'd recommend everyone to watch even a bit of them, regardless of what you think of the USSR.

[Solaire_au_Frohmage]

A little sidenote: mockery of the elite, although most likely endorsed and influenced by the communist/socialist culture at the time, was mostly taken 1 to 1 from the source material - the fairy tales and folklore, and parallels with, for example, Pushkin's fairy tales' characters could easily be seen.

[SarabiArt]

There's also "Aladdin and His Magic Lamp" (1967 film), an absolute jem and one of my favorites.

[Neonblue]

I come from East Germany and Russian/Soviet fairy tales were very popular there. It is still a tradition for me to watch old fairy tales from there at Christmas. I really like the well-designed stage set and also the special effects, even if they are now outdated.

[thecandlemaker]

I find that the best way to describe Alexander Rou's style to a foreigner is this: take Tim Burton, strip him of all his dark and Gothic sensibilities and replace them with whimsy and bright colours.

[Wallyworld]

My Favorite Soviet Film ever was Fantasy. "The Amphibian Man" (1961). The Lair that Amphibian Man and his father live in could easily pass for a James Bond's Villain Lair whom's first movie came out after Amphibian Man in 1962. James Bond films clearly took inspiration from this movie for their James Bond Movies.

[DVXDemetrivs]

13:30 Tugars are a reference not just to the Mongols, but to nomads in general. Polovtsians, Pechenegs, Khazars, Torks. The inhabitants of Rus experienced frequent raids from the great steppe by various nomadic peoples

[nathangibbons]

I will add that "The Golden Key" is sort of based on Pinocchio, but not exactly. It's based off of a 1936 book called "The Golden Key" but also known as "The Adventures of Buratino". The book was written by Aleksey Tolstoy as a kind of retelling of Pinocchio for a Soviet readership. I do remember enjoying the 1939 version however, it was fun.

[Irgendwas]

I'm from east Germany and even tho i was born after most of those movies came out, they were my childhood

[ladooshka]

Ptushko's "Tale about the Lost Time" ( сказка о потеренном времени) is one of my forever favorite fantasy movie for children. Highly recommended!

[haiironotategami]

You must watch the Soviet Jungle Book called "Mowgli". Bagheera's character animation is incredible. Soviet animators managed to show femininity (in the Soviet version Bagheera is a female character, which is caused by the perception of the name Bagheera in Russian) and even some sexuality in the cat's movements.

[TheSoundonly]

Mark Zakharov's films are absolute gems, especially That Very Same Munchausen and To Kill a Dragon. The dialogue is full of iconic phrases that are endlessly quotable.
"Smile, gentlemen. Most of the greatest stupidities in the world are done with serious faces. So smile, gentlemen."
"All love is legal if it's love".
"He left his wife alone with a kid!" - "Who are you calling a kid? I'm an officer!" - "He left his wife alone with an officer..."

[claranimmer]

I always loved this actor playing the Baba Jaga (Georgi Milljar).

[denniszaychik]

Funny thing about Sadko was that it was presented in America as Sindbad. 😂 Im not joking this was a real thing.

[zerosolem]

Also soviet Cinderella (1947)! One of my favourite! Such a warm, very kind and romantic masterpiece with beautiful songs that I even cry sometimes while listening.

[marcusfridh]

The fun thing is that the live action version of the Astrid Lindgren Mio my Mio from 1987, was shot in Soviet, it was actually the first acting job of Christian Bale as JumJum, and Christoffer Lee himself played the main villian, the evil knight Cato, who litteraly had a heart of stone.

[thedreamscripter]

I really suggest anyone, who likes epic fantasy, to watch Ruslan and Ludmila. It has so many events and adventures packed in the film - with giants, wood spirits, magic battles, sword battles, surreal magic palaces, lots of charismatic characters and many others. And music is just magnificent

[Brianna-eonu]

In terms of special effects, The Golden Key (1939) is mind blowing. Not only do you have a variety of effects used like masks and costumes, stop motion, forced perspective and more, they’re also incredibly well done for the time.

The scenes with stop motion characters interacting with live action ones are especially mind boggling. As an English speaking animation fan and aspiring animator, it was nailed into my head from so many animation history books, video essays and documentaries that Who Framed Roger Rabbit (1988) was the first full length animation/live action hybrid movie to truly perfect cartoons interacting with real people. Meanwhile, in Golden Key, you’ve got stop motion characters seamlessly interacting with live actors with matching eye-lines and all like it’s nothing! In the 1930s!

How this film isn’t at least a prominent footnote in the history of animation as special effects in cinema is a mystery to me. It deserves way more attention from English speaking cinephiles.

[achezafignya]

Так необычно смотреть видео про те фильмы, которые я смотрела будучи ребёнком. Даже не знаю, что думают все те, кто не рос в странах СНГ, и не смотрел эти произведения.