Undescribable Perfection

To me, this movie is perfection.

Just what I expected

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

With my 31st birthday coming up on February 9th I started gathering up movies that I've been saving to view. Recently being in the mood to see a Fantasy film,I found fellow IMDber Red-Barracuda's review of a title from the Soviet Union to be very interesting, which led to me pulling a scarlet flower out of the ground.The plot:Before going to work at the market,a merchant asks his three daughters if there is anything that they want. Asked to get a golden tiara and a crystal mirror by his first two,the Merchant is taken aback ,when his third daughter asks him to get a scarlet flower she has been dreaming of! Crossing the sea to work,the merchant is shocked to spot the flower and pulls it out. Awakening with a scream,a beast appears and tells the merchant that due to him killing the rare flower, he must spend the rest of his life there...View on the film:Weaving the fairy tale in a fittingly swift 65 minutes, director Irina Povolotskaya, cinematographer Aleksandr Antipenko and special effects duo Leonid Akimov & L. Miatshin conjure up outstanding practical effects,from the glowing,red ruby hue of the scarlet flower,to the lizard-style monster having a lush green appearance, that seamlessly blends into the background like a chameleon. Pulling the Beauty and the Beast outline into a new direction, Povolotskaya gives the rotting mansion a reflected fading silver appearance,which is neatly balanced by the warm, rustic tracking shots Povolotskaya uses to follow the merchant attempting to fulfill his daughters requests.Adapting Sergey Aksakov's own 1858 interpretation of Beauty and the Beast,the screenplay by Natalya Ryazantseva (a woman writer working with a woman director-a real rarity in the USSR) marvellously keeps the Gothic element of Beauty via the reclusive state of the Beast,but takes the Fantasy in its own direction with a (somewhat) Soviet Union message of the Merchant being a hard-working soul,who is prepared to give up his life in order to keep his daughters happy. Facing demands from his daughter and the Beast, Lev Durov gives a terrific, worn-down performance as the humble Merchant,whose life is changed when he pulls out the scarlet flower.

The 1952 animated version by Soyuzmultfilm personally is superior, but both do justice to such a great story. The special effects here are not mind-blowing, sometimes a little crude. The film is very fairy-tale-like in its detail and atmosphere, it is lovely to look at and the colours are appropriately moody with striking colour tinges. The music is both ethereal and haunting, while the writing is never too sophisticated or childish, if anything it's gentle with a good sense of mood conveyed. The story is simple and leisurely and for the better, fairy-tales are better adapted like that in my opinion, contrary to what's been said before there is a sense of mystery and magic here though more convincing in the 1952 animated version. The ending is very heartfelt. The acting is noble, generally natural and not too theatrical, while the direction is solid and doesn't allow the storytelling to get too limp. In conclusion, not quite as good as the 1952 animation but lovely still. 8/10 Bethany Cox

This film came as extra with yesterday's SuperIllu magazine. (East German DEFA dub, "Die feuerrote Blume"). I read Hazel's not so positive comment before buying it, and wondered whether I was in for a disappointment. I wasn't.Although rated for ages 0 and up, I'm not sure whether young children will enjoy this - it's not very action-packed, and the Beauty & the Beast story is presented at a leisurely pace, quite subtly, often lingering on details.Not so subtle is the color editing, where about half the scenes are strongly tinted in yellow, blue, or red - sometimes to a degree that reminded me of colorized b&w films. But I wasn't let down by that - colors just added to the mood representation in my opinion, and especially the yellowish once were fascinating. This is a fantasy movie most of all.The music added to the style, too - from Russian folk songs to cembalo pieces. An interesting mix, and often enjoyable.Directed by a woman, the plot might be summarized most briefly as the struggle of two women (the bitter sorceress and the idealistic girl) for one man: the Beast/prince. It is a fairy tale after all. In the end, girl gets boy, and they might even live happily ever after. But at hardly any time did I find this film childish. In fact, I'd rate it quite high among the (roughly 10) Soviet "fairy tale" movies I've seen, though each has its strong points. And finally, thanks to SuperIllu for delivering one old-time socialist movie every first Thursday of the month :^)

A film based on a variant of the fable of the beauty and the beast, it never really grips the imagination, with weak use of special effects and lame characterisations.The colour is poor and the sense of being in the depths of the forest, prey to spirits and magic spells, is never really captured.