This is a beautiful 1968 Soviet adaptation of ‘The Little Mermaid,’ by Hans Christian Andersen. It was produced by the great Soyuzmultfilm studio. There are no subtitles. Just enjoy it as a brilliantly animated musical approach to a great tale.
The film begins with a busload of tourists sightseeing in Copenhagen. Then it moves to sea and our story begins…
This is a 1951 Russian animation of an 1833 fairytale poem written by Alexander Pushkin that is based upon the classic Grimms tale, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It was directed by Ivan Pyetrovich Ivanov-Vano, known as the ‘patriarch of Soviet animation.’
You can read Pushkin’s The Tale of the Dead Princess and the Seven Knights
The film is in Russian so you can use the YouTube settings to turn on English subtitles.
This is a 1952 Soviet film adaptation of a variation on the Beauty and the Beast story called 'The Scarlet Flower', written by Sergey Aksakov in 1858. This story focuses much more on the bargain made between the unseen beast and the girl's father when he touches the scarlet flower on the magical island that is the beast's home than in the versions most American audiences are familiar with..
The animation technique in use here is called rotoscoping. Actors were filmed in costume doing their character movements, then traced frame-by-frame to create what was supposed to be a more realistic animation. In fact, rotoscoping often produces a curiously lifeless movement in conflict with the more fantastic backgrounds.
This is an extraordinary 1984 science fiction animation from the Soviet era Ukrainian film studio known as Kievnauchfilm. Aliens visit the earth to investigate whether humans have any knowledge of the reality behind UFOs.
Here’s a link to another animation from this studio. Stephen King’s ‘Battleground’ short story.
This film was directed by Vladimir Tarasov and was adapted from a novel by Kir Bulychev.
Igor Kovalyov, who has had an extraordinary animation career as both an independent producer of bizarre shorts and as a Klasky Csupo producer of things like ‘Rugrats’ made this very strange depiction of domestic life without any dialog. Enjoy the weirdness.
Here’s a 1950s Soviet animated version of the classic fairy tale ‘Beauty and the Beast.’
Parts 1 – 2 after the jump…
Russian animator Yura Boguslavsky made this film with children and adults in his animation workshop. It’s a lunatic and irrational story about a king with a wild beard and some very strange fish people who live in Cardboardia.
Paul Gallagher at Dangerous Minds posted this 1924 Russian propaganda masterpiece. It’s a wild, science fiction, abstract work of art that just keeps pumping out wondrous images, one after the other. I love the ragged edges and mix of photographs, hand-drawn animation and cutouts.
A 1913 stop-motion film produced by the Russian Khanzhonkov Company and directed by Vladislav Starevich. Gorgeous. Look at how expressive Father Christmas is. He begins the tale as an ornament on a tree. He climbs down and makes his way into the forest.
A Russian stop-motion animation from 1912. Directed by Ladislaw Starewicz. Angry, jealous, cheating beetles!
Here’s some more information about the filmmaker at Dangerous Minds.
Shakespeare: The Animated Tales was a BBC television series of the 1990s that produced 30-minute versions of Shakespeare’s plays with animation done by well-known Russian animators at the Christmasfilms studio. This version of ‘The Scottish Play’ stars Brian Cox.
Click the continue reading link for parts 2 and 3.
This is a cartoon criticism of capitalism by Roman Davydov, from Soyuzmultfilm. It was made in 1963 and captures the early 1960s better than most American cartoons have. It’s look at the struggle of an American worker fooled into thinking he’s doing well because he’s a stock owner in his company is very accurate and should speak loudly in today’s circumstances. The widescreen art looks like it comes straight out of an illustrated magazine advertisement of the time. The finale with all the race cars and crashes is incredible. There is an irritating tendency to refer to films like this one as ‘propaganda.’ Why is it so difficult to criticize capitalism in democracies? Capitalism is simply an economic program and should be under constant criticism and assault from all sides. There is absolutely nothing about capitalism that should protect it from becoming obsolete.
Part 2:
Part 3:
This is the opening and closing animation for a children’s television show in Russia. It was made by Yuri Norstein who works primarily with pieces of painted paper that he moves to create stop-motion animations unlike any others in the world. This is a beautiful piece that captures the storybook imagination perfectly. It looks damned close to being 3-dimensional. But don’t be fooled – Pixar can’t do this. Only Norstein can. He does it with his fingers. Incredible and brilliant and exquisite.
Shakespeare: The Animated Tales was a BBC television series of the 1990s that produced 30-minute versions of Shakespeare’s plays with animation done by well-known Russian animators at the Christmasfilms studio. This version of The Winter’s Tale is Shakespeare’s dark comedy about a king’s jealousy run wild. This little animated version is loaded with gorgeous wintry scenes.
Click the continue reading link for parts 2 and 3.