Yesterday we got our first substantial sky full of snow here in the big city, and though it didn’t stick I figured it was signal enough for me to post a seasonal review. We don’t always review Christmas movies during Christmas time, but when we do they involve a Cossack in a furry hat flying around on the Devil’s back.
Evenings on a Farm Near Dikanka
The movie opens as all good Christmas movies should: with a scene of a jolly witch tearing across the night sky astride her broomstick, collecting stars for her eldritch brews, while the devil bats the moon around and eventually slips it into his pocket. Meanwhile, a trio of village elders meet up to go get drunk at the local tavern, noticing en route that it’s especially dark that night and that someone seems to have stolen the moon. The devil responds by sending a snowstorm to bury the three revelers, who become separated in the blizzard but in true can-do spirit, two manage never the less to reach the tavern.
Keith Allison is the chief Bacchanologist at Teleport City.
#1 by Redcrow on December 12, 2014 - 10:04 am
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Mr. Allison, I like a lot of articles on your site, and really appreciate that once in a while you write about Russian movies. I hope this will continue.
P.S. I was almost shocked to see the mention of “Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors” in your article – not exactly the movie I’d expect to be known to most not-Russian people (or even to a lot of Russian people below certain age, to be honest).
#2 by KeithA on December 12, 2014 - 5:53 pm
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Thanks. Although not Russian myself, I live in a heavily Russian neighborhood and have picked up an interest in the films over the past few years — as well as the early Soviet cinema playing a crucial role to the development of film in general.
Kingdom of Cracked Mirrors, oddly, was picked up by an American distributor many years ago, dubbed into English, and made the rounds on television and kiddie matinees. It can still be found on DVD here. They did the same thing with Ilya Muromets (retitled The Sword and the Dragon), Sadko (retitled The Magic Voyage of Sinbad), and a handful of other Russian fantasy and science fiction films from the 60s and 70s. It’s only recently that we’ve been able to see them in the original form and original language though.