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Comment on On Your Mark! (1979)
4.Admin

>>3
Well, you're free to send me a private message to me through the site any time with suggestions! I might even have subtitles for them already. There are still a lot of films I have subtitles for that aren't on the site yet because I try to check the translation for accuracy before I add anything.

I made Russian subtitles for "The Blue Planet", and will start on the English translation, but it may take a while because it uses "high style" poetry (just like this one). I'm not yet sure how long it will take!

I've seen "Fantastic Planet" and while I really like that film (despite an ending that feels too shallow and naive to me), I don't think there's much similarity with "The Blue Planet". Aside from both being widescreen animated sci-fi that's not very American...


Replies: >>5

Comment on On Your Mark! (1979)
3.RPG_2022

>>2
If you want more suggestions please let me know.


Replies: >>4

Comment on On Your Mark! (1979)
2.Admin

>>1
Thanks for the suggestions! I've added the Shukalyukov (although I wish the video was better quality). I'll try and get to "The Blue Planet" soon. I'd actually come across it before when going through Kazakhfilm's back catalogue, and had put it off for later. Its aspect ratio is wrong on Youtube, but that's easy enough to fix.


Replies: >>3

Comment on Dutch Lullaby (2007)
1.Admin

With some of these lullabies, it's more obvious than with others that the song is not nearly enough to fill up the required 3-minute running time. Especially true here, where the song only begins as the credits begin to roll!

I think this is far from being the strongest entry in this series (that's probably the Ukrainian one, though I also like the Jewish and the French), but no matter; I'll add all the ones for which I can find a translation.



Comment on On Your Mark! (1979)
1.RPG_2022

There's another sci-fi animated short directed by Lev Shukalyukov for Belarusfilm, ''He Came Flying Only Once'' (Russian title: Он прилетал лишь однажды, 1978). There's an upload of the film on YouTube without subs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fm4PQnmzrCE. The short relies more on images than dialogue, but it would be good if subs were made for it.

Another noteworthy Soviet sci-fi animation is ''The Blue Planet'' (Russian title: Голубая планета, 1971) made by Kazakhfilm, also on YouTube without subs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFhFq4mpEs4. It's very reminiscent of Rene Laloux's ''Fantastic Planet'' (1973), even though it was released two years before. Might be worth making subs for this too.

Just putting these out there. I know a little Russian, but not enough to make subs.

Great upload here btw.


Replies: >>2 >>6

Comment on The Return of the Prodigal Parrot (1984)
2.Admin

>>1
>Thanks for the great memories :)

You're welcome. :) It went with the era, I think. Did you see the article I linked to in the "series" page? (it's in Russian, but you can use Yandex or Google Translate to read it) I don't know how much I agree, but I thought it was interesting to see how the character and the series is seen nowadays (at least, by some of those who give it enough thought to write articles about it). For what it's worth, the opinion of someone I know who owned a parrot, when I described Kesha's character to them, said "it seems that the writers knew what parrots are like!"

Here's the conclusion of the article (from Yandex Translate, manually fixed-up where needed):

---

The cartoon is certainly witty and its phrases have long since become quotes that live separately from the original source (about Tahiti and "they don't feed us too badly", about "bubblegum" and so on). In the animation and the dynamics, all is wonderful. And therefore, even more disgusting. A mediocre cartoon (or movie, or book) will not really affect one's consciousness.

However, the main character here is a nasty piece of work, and even the mice from "Leopold the Cat" are better. There, at least, the eternal confrontation of cats and mice is played out, but here is just vile betrayal carried out from film to film. What is terrible about this plot? The very possibility of being a scumbag and setting up loved ones...

Everything is served up through a fairy tale. From the mid-1980s, they [that is, "they"] began to actively lay the foundations for a new morality - moreover, the creators themselves did not even realize what they were doing. Kesha is an ideal symbol of the Perestroika society with its endless cries of: "Give! We want changes! Where are our jeans and gum?! Give us music videos and tape players!"

I will note that the prodigal parrot's tastes are typically philistine, pro-Western, and the not-on-brand Vovka, deprived of prestigious imported benefits (which he does not need), constantly turns out to be a fool. He is humiliated, forsaken, but invariably they come back to him with broken wings.

The question arises: why are you needed, Kesha? Why are you loved? Yes, in the 2000s, several more sequels were filmed, but they were completely disastrous, because Kesha was a phenomenon during Perestroika, and in the 2000s, children were already watching other birds, fish and monsters.

---

I think there was indeed a bit of a trend of "cool" characters acting nasty and then either having nothing bad happen to them or being 100% forgiven by their victims in 1980s Soviet animation. Never a majority trend, but it was there. Besides "Kesha", I can think of the aforementioned mice in "Leopold" and Butyrin's "If I Were My Dad" (especially the second one).



Comment on The Return of the Prodigal Parrot (1984)
1.Жукороп

I remember watching this with my sibling many times as a kid, though I'm not really sure what made us so obsessed with these series. Watching now, I can't even make it to the first 30 seconds without cringing, but the feel of nostalgia does make my heart warm. Thanks for the great memories :)


Replies: >>2

Comment on Long Live Perseus! (1993)
1.Admin

Oops, I just realized that this is part of Merry-Go-Round (Весёлая карусель) #26. I'm going to change the title and add a new default video once the rest of it has English subtitles.



Comment on December 32 (1988)
1.Admin

This was a real pain to translate, but I think it's worth it - it's a very enjoyable film. The art style strongly reminded me Andrey Svislotskiy's 1992 Hypnerotomachia (even a bit of the animation is copied), and indeed, the same art director, Yevgeniy Sheshenin, worked on both films, and Svislotskiy was an animator on this one. But the animator.ru credits for this film are very incomplete and neither are credited.

Neither are they listed in the English subtitles (because there are song lyrics that need translating), so I'm going to list the credits in this comment, just so they exist somewhere online:
Director & screenplay - Vladimir Samsonov
Art director - Yevgeniy Sheshenin
Composer - Anatoliy Kiselev
Lyrics - Leonid Derbenev
Vocalists - Pavel Smeyan & Lyubov Privina
Instrumental Ensemble "Dobry Molodtsy"
Camera - Ernst Gaman
Sound - N. Kudrina
Director's assistants - Z. Kredushinskaya, A. Grishanova
Art director assistant - A. Tsybin
Backgrounds - L. Yanelis
Animators - A. Kolkov, N. Bazeltseva, A. Svislotskiy, Ye. Delyusin, D. Naumov, Yu. Andreyev, I. Gundyreva, A. Yurkovskaya, M. Zaytsev, V. Barbe
Montage - L. Ruban
Script editor - A. Feodoridi
Production director - Lidiya Varentsova



Comment on A New Year Journey (1959)
1.Admin

I think this one is very mediocre, unfortunately - uninspired and unoriginal art direction, a silly script, a "Ded Moroz" who is too much like the Western Santa Claus, weak characters. Which surprises me, as it comes from the director of the really well-done "Wolf and Seven Little Goats" of only two years before.



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