Wonderfully offbeat film!

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

after decades, the same force of seduction. nothing surprising because it remains one of the inspired adaptations of the fairy tale of Andersen and one of the good explanations for the high interest of Russian cinematography for it. the new elements - the presence of narrator as character of story, the impressive Snow Queen, the freshness of humor and crumbs of animation, the nice manner to drive a simple story as gift for the children of each age and the flavor of original text are virtues of a lovely trip in the essence of childhood.

it is not impressive. old special effects, crumbs of propaganda, minor changes of story, only few special scenes. but it has a great virtue - for many adults from East Europe, it remains a touching souvenir. and, after years, the emotions are not very different. same delicate /cold charm of Natalia Klimova as Snow Queen. same identification with Gerda of Elena Proklova or Kay of Slava Zjupa. the silhouette of Valeri Nikitenko as narrator and, sure, maybe, the flavor of language. it is a Christmas ornament. delicate, gentle, childish, shining. that is its secret. and explanation for who, after years and years, its charm is not lost.

Interestingly just like in 'Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors' (1964) - another Russian fairy tale movie I just watched yesterday - the king isn't the brightest bulb in the box and secretly is under the command of the kingdom's richest man, a capitalist through and through he made it big as a businessman by selling ice and as is usually the case with people who have handled ice a lot he is as pale as Dita von Teese, his body temperature is 34.2°C and consequently is heartless and spews "Nonsense!" a lot when other people talk about feelings.He's the story's main villain. Although he makes a lot of trouble for the main character - a girl on the quest to save her brother who has a cold heart after he kissed the snow queen (Nyzzzz!) and is now in her hands - he eventually lacks the courage, the willpower and the strength to ever finish anything he started because he comes to a halt as soon as he is confronted with an obstacle that he can't move out of the way by "throwing money at it" (=figuratively speaking...I suppose one has to make that clear when talking about a fairy tale movie). In one scene he negotiates with a group of thieves and when the head of the thieves asks if they can trust him he puts himself on the same level as thieves by saying: "Nonsense! We are both businesspeople." The message is clear, capitalists are criminals.The movie starts off with a teller of fairy tales walking the streets who through voice-over explains that he will not only tell but even show us a fairy tale in which he puts himself in. Although not one of the most prominent characters in the tale he secretly makes himself the hero because his character repeatedly saves the day. The "good guys" win their battles almost effortlessly and eventually it is VERY easy for the girl to bring her brother back home and to warm his cold heart again (which takes her two minutes of chit-chat with him).Visually it isn't too spectacular except for the titular Snow Queen whose appearance is dashing while her persona is positively icy and her impressive ice palace which you only get to see for one scene towards the end doesn't need to shy away from a comparison with "Superman"s Krypton sets.

To me this movie is nothing more than the adaptation of the masterpiece written by Shwartz. Since I saw the movie only a few days after reading the play, I had something to compare the movie with, and I must say that it's nicely done.Even though this story is written for small children (at least I believe that's how Anderson wrote it), Shwartz was able to rewrite it so that adults can also enjoy it.I liked the few scenes that represent the absurd (for example the kingdom divided into two parts), and this creates a world where everything is understood literally.The cast for this movie is also great. When I was reading the play, I could not picture myself the king. Yet when I saw Leonov, it became obvious that he is the perfect actor to play the king.After all, this is not a movie about an adventure, but about people, their reactions, their feelings.