This is my favourite part of the trilogy, and probably the most approachable entry-point as well.

The first 10 minutes of the film, especially, are really beautiful and have some amazing animation. Also, it has the most approachable narrative approach of the trilogy, so even those not familiar with Pushkin's life shouldn't get too confused (which you can't really say about the 1st or 3rd films, which are rather introspective).

The original script for this film is not actually from folklore, but fairy tale The Tale of Brave Yatto and His Sister Teune (Сказка о храбром Ятто и его сестре Тэюнэ) by Zhanna Vitenzon. She rewrote a classical motif of the Neney people. Neney (ненэй) means "human", which is the same as Nanay (нанай). Therefore, perhaps the ancestors of the Neney people lived in Northeast China before migrating to the cold Arctic. There are two things to reinforce this point :

The names of all the peoples who settled around the Pacific Ocean actually refer only to element "human". Example : Han (Chinese), Hmoob (Hmong), Kadai (Thai)... Even the word "viet" in "Vietnam" is probably a variation of a word meaning "human".

The Deer with the Golden Antlers was the patron saint of all Tungusic peoples, including the ethnic group who gave birth to the Qing dynasty. He is probably a North Asian version of the sun god.

This story used to be very popular in Vietnam and it reminds me of an unforgettable memory. In a science show (KCT = khoa học-công nghệ-thông tin = science-technology-information) aired around 1994, a professor raised the following question : Two children set out to save their mother who was kidnapped by the Snow Queen, so she agreed to release the mother on one condition, that, the children had to make the needle float on the water. In the next week's program, the group of students answered that the kids just needed to attach the needle to the paper. The reason I remember it so well is because at the end of the show there was the witch's evil laugh, which was created by an actress. I really lost sleep for several nights because of fear.

The film is a true reflection of the Soviet Union in the 1970s, which is often considered Russian people's most prosperous period of the 20th century, or even since the early 19th century. When you have little to worry about in terms of material things, the only thing you have to do is... contemplate and imagine. But I think that this is the reason for the collapse of the Soviet regime. Because when people lose the habit of working, illusions begin to invade their souls. They gradually become lazy and life begins to seem meaningless. I know that around 1989, a Soviet leader went to Singapore to ask for a loan of 50 million USD to save the economy, but Mr. Lee Kuan Yew refused. So, as we know, the Soviet regime collapsed in the next two years.

In fact, the wealth of the Soviet Union and the prosperity of the communist bloc created illusions for Vietnamese society from the 1970s until about 1988. When this film was made, Vietnam had just been reunified. The South Vietnamese economy, although stagnant since late 1974, still contributed to the hope of most Vietnamese, especially those in the North. My maternal grandfather, my mother and an [elder] aunt-in-law took the (~2000km) train from the poor North to the Mekong Delta to buy rice as early as 1976. This was of course extraordinary given the circumstances of Korea or Vietnam itself before 1975. Images of trains or buses packed with people were very familiar at that time. Israel-style agriculture combined with a capitalist economy has kept South Vietnam among the Asian economic tigers. Although the North Vietnamese government tried to propagate its evils, in reality, it was the North cadres who were seduced by it. It is a fact that the disease of delusion "killed" the entire generation that came of age in the 1970s and 1980s. They were arrogant, shameless, cowardly, lazy, depraved... which were the vices described in contemporary literature. The media at that time continuously "sang" the refrain of proletarian friendship, the victory of communism over capitalist forces or the day of advancing to a communist society not far away : 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. However, after Perestroyka, no one cared about those things anymore. Take the Soviet-Vietnam relationship for example : In 1975, the Vietnamese government used a special plane to secretly transport 17 tons of gold from the South Vietnamese treasury to the Soviet Union to pay off its debt. This event was only revealed by Frank Snepp in the 2010s, although before that, public opinion believed that President Nguyễn Văn Thiệu had stolen. Of course, because of arrogance, at that time the Soviet government converted those 17 tons of gold into flour and books to aid Vietnam. But in 1988, when the economy began to collapse, the Soviet Union asked Vietnam to pay its debt, and Vietnam immediately demanded that the Soviet Union pay back the land rent for the embassy in Hanoi (previously, out of friendship or... arrogance, this amount was consistently zero).

That dispute actually froze Soviet-Vietnamese relations. After the Russian government was established, Vietnam agreed to pay its debt in oil and gas, that is, the Vietsovpetro joint venture was responsible for exploiting oil and gas in the East Sea of ​​Vietnam to supply to Russia, with only a small part being kept. Russia was responsible for training Vietnamese technicians and sending people to maintain equipment, even providing helicopters. My generation benefited from the fruits of this cooperation, as Russian films shown on the central television throughout the 1990s were free and plentiful, and at the same time, gasoline prices in Vietnam at that time were extremely affordable. I still think that a few delusional people won't be a problem, but if the majority are like that, it's definitely a disaster.

This is the comic version of the short story : EN & RU.

Some of the same sense of timing and movement as in Tatarskiy's earlier films, but here the effect is more horrifying rather than funny. Tatarskiy had never done a film like this before, though some of the other directors at Pilot had. Notably, his once close collaborator Igor Kovalyov, back in 1989. The surreal portrayal of the desires of the living affecting the inanimate, in particular, is very much something that Kovalyov liked to do, while some of the sense of environmental "wrongness" remind me of Svislotskiy's Hypnerotomachia.

This actually seems like the sort of film that many other directors (such as Robert Saakyants) started making starting around the late 1980s (a decade earlier among the Estonians), so Tatarskiy was rather late to it. He was initially very optimistic about the changes in the country, so perhaps it took a decade longer to hit him? This was shortly after the 1998 economic collapse, and after several calamities befell his unfinished feature film project, so he must have been feeling pretty down.

But it is very strange that this was to be his final solo film. His next ones were all co-directed with Telegin and don't really feel like Tatarskiy to me, with "Interpretation of Dreams" being a partial exception.

Perhaps it was also his last that was traditionally-animated (I'm not sure about "The Red Gate of Rashomon").

I really like the visual style and creativity here. Such a great contrast to the boring commercial, derivative stuff that the likes of Soyuzmultfilm are mostly making these days...

The screenplay is what's lacking here, but that's to be expected considering this was likely the final work for a graphic design diploma.

But in principle, that can be improved on the director's own initiative later, if someone gives her the chance. Ivan Maximov's early films (which this reminds me of) were also like this, but they gradually became more "grounded" later.

Unfortunately, it seems unlikely to me that anyone will give Chukhrova the same chances to develop that Maximov got (it is really not the right era), which is a real shame.

I found this one visually interesting but mostly too simplistic (how exactly does one man turn random birds on the sidewalk into fascists? Inquiring minds want to know...), although the ending was clever. Unfortunately, I think this is a case of critics (in this case, at Cannes) giving an award more because of the idea.

>>3
Thanks for the link! Interesting, though the text is necessarily short due to the Diafilm (in English, "filmstrip") format. Seems that there might be a part 2 as well, but nobody's scanned it yet.
Some other books about Ukrainian animation or by Ukrainian animation artists:

Мультипанорама. Збірник сценаріїв українських мультиплікаційних фільмів 1979 _ Multipanorama. 1979, Collection of screenplays of Ukrainian animated films
Мультипанорама - 2. Сборник сценариев. 1984 _ Multipanorama - 2. Collection of screenplays. 1984 (Ukrainian screenplays from pg.107, others before that. Includes "Hedgehog in the Fog" screenplay)

Если вы любите мультипликацию. Из творческого опыта кинорежиссера. Евгений Сивоконь 1985 (book of Yevgeniy Sivokon, director and after the 1990s later the main animation pedagogue)

Мистецтво мультиплікацii. Б. М. Крижанівський 1981 _ Искусство мультипликации _ The art of animation (about animation in general)
Искусство мультипликации на Украине. Борис Крыжановский. 1984 _ The art of animation in Ukraine (about Ukrainian animation specifically)

Мультипликация, аниматограф, фантоматика. Сборник статей. Издание фестиваля «Крок-89». 1989 (1989 KROK animation festival publication)
Каталог фестиваля анимационных фильмов КРОК 2001 _ Catalog of Animation Film Festival KROK 2001

This film was actually a children's version of The Blacksmith's Banner (کاوه آهنگر, Дирафши Ковиёнӣ, Деравш Кавиани). Most of the Šāhnāme characters and events were fictionalized in the period 977-1010, meaning at least four centuries after the Ērānšahr era. Ferdowsi's stories reflected the transition from barbarism to civilization, or the struggle for survival between savage peoples in the steppes of Central Asia, and it had little to do with modern Iran. We should also know that, during this period, all three of the most important continents on the planet were unstable politically, socially and in identity. Of course, in that context, the region that is today Central Asia was truly the epicenter of all turmoil, where people only acted with each other according to commercial interests and vice versa, which only meant war. For many centuries, this was almost the only place where there were huge armies numbering millions, followed by countless massacres : Thousands of heads were cut off, then stuffed with straw and paraded to frighten the public. Therefore, the struggle of the blacksmith Kāve (کاوه آهنگر, Kāve Āhangar, Коваи оҳангар) is the transformation from injustice to justice, or an idol-worshiping society to an age of worship of nature. The story of Kāve is unclear whether it predates or contemporaries Šāhnāme, but the name Zahāk (ضحّاک, Заҳҳок) somehow recalls king Hahav (אַחְאָב) in the Old Testament, which appeared almost a millennium before Šāhnāme.

An interesting fact is that the fictional blacksmith has been revered as the founder of the Tajik nation. An interesting fact is that the fictional blacksmith has been revered as the founder of the Tajik people, while he is less respected in Iran (modern Iranians worship Rostam). During the final uprising, Kāve used a square standard (درفش کاویانی, Drafš-e Kāvīān, "the standard of the kings") embroidered with a golden lotus. Lotus flowers are usually only white or light pink, while yellow flowers also exist but are extremely rare in reality. However, the golden lotus is one of the symbols of Zoroastrianism, what represents the image of the sun. As we know through Greek mythology, the sun symbolizes justice, faith and victory, or combined, fortune.

Thus, during the Soviet period, Tajikistan was the only autonomous republic that consistently featured Šāhnāme in cinema. That said, there were hidden rules for creating Tajikistan's identity, because before the XX-century, Tajiks were only a small and weak semi-nomadic people in Central Asia, even they could not create their own nation. Since 2006, Drafš-e Kāvīān has been restored as the presidential standard of Tajikistan. Perhaps the president of Tajikistan was also once a boy who loved this animated film ?

This film reminds me of a memory. Among the toys my father brought back from Bulgaria was a rubber goose. At that time, all rubber toys were very thin and had to be inflated before they could be used. My cousin and I took it out to play with it. I tried climbing on its back, and its stomach was immediately punctured. Even though it was only a small tear, those were years when life in Vietnam was very difficult, so even simple glue was not available. My grandfather and father tried but could not mend the tear. My father had to keep the goose in the closet for more than twenty years, because after all, it was a memory of my grandfather and the time my father used to live in Bulgaria. However, the tear has followed me throughout my life.