An interesting later film by the director of the famous There Will Come Soft Rains (1984). It shows just how much directors can be influenced by the society around them, and what sort of audience they are aiming their film at. Back then, Tashkent was the 4th biggest city in one of the two global superpowers, and the director was aiming at a sophisticated, cosmopolitan audience, adapting a story that warns about humanity's future. What resulted was a striking film that won international awards and counts British royalty among its fans. In 2011, the potential distribution of his film was limited to just Uzbekistan, so he adapted a more mythic, patriotic story from the distant past.

There's a big change in animation technique too, of course. Although I think that in both cases, the films have some impressive and striking visuals, and a certain love of detail.

Speaking of the story itself, I went digging around and finally found the only surviving ancient Greek textual source. Finding it was made more difficult because all of the names are spelled differently in Greek than they are in Uzbek. Despite some differences, it's clearly a version of the same story, with the same names. It shows that the tale has been around for a long time, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were different versions of it even back then. Frankly, the ending of that Greek version - in which the army is saved after the Persian King Darius prays to the Greek god Apollo (wasn't Zoroastrianism the main religion there back then?) - seems pretty suspicious to me. I suppose they couldn't all die because in that version King Darius is with the army as well, and his date and place of death are well-known (the story wouldn't be believable if it claimed that Darius died there).

Regarding the translation, it is based entirely on the Russian voice-over dub. I don't know Uzbek, so if the Uzbek text differs at all from the Russian, the subtitles may not be entirely accurate. Also, the Russian actor interchangeably says both "Shirok" and "Shirak". The first is closer to the Uzbek name, and the second is closer to the one in "Strategems" ("Siraces").

I imagine it was a bit of challenge to make a film that has no characters other than trees - and not trees with faces, either. I think the atmosphere of the peaceful forest, and then of something very wrong and malevolent appearing in it, comes through quite well. As for the possible political aspect - yes, it's hard for me not to see this as a veiled critique of the Soviet government and a prediction of its collapse (which was still 3 years away, but by this point things were obviously beginning to unravel). But the message could be a broader one as well - about how seemingly invincible and sturdy things may yet have an unexpected weakness due to their very nature.

A charming film. The bold, simple character designs out of geometric figures and with bold colours remind me of the puppet films of Roman Kachanov at Soyuzmultfilm around the same time (no wonder, since Salimov apparently studied there). It is also beautifully restored except for the music cutting out for about 30 seconds. Kind of odd to see the sheer enthusiasm for pesticides here - this was before it became fashionable to reduce their use due to the effects on human health. The way it ends slightly reminds me of Bendum and Twistum: Merry Masters (1960), in which the pests are similarly defeated with pesticides at the end.

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A very pretty film, with bright colours and attractive design. The characters also move better than in Salimov's film of the previous year.

The idea of telling a story about cuckoos' egg-laying habits doesn't mesh well with communist ideology and its belief in nurture over nature (a mainstream belief in many places today, too). Whether it was because of this factor or not (was the script modified from the initial proposal?), the story ends up being more complex and multilayered than it first seems it will be. I wasn't quite sure what to make of it until I started thinking about the nightingale's final verses at the end ("What's born of good is good, / And evil begets evil"). Although the film shows literally how the yellow chicks are "born good" and the cuckoo chicks are "born evil" from their respective biological parents, it also shows a different type of birth, one that is based on memetic rather than biological transmission: the love of the adoptive parents is echoed in the good and heroic final actions of at least one of the cuckoo chicks. And on the other side, the cuckoo birds' evil scheme leads the generally "good" smaller bird parents into the horrible (if partly justified) decision to attempt to lynch both the cuckoo chicks and their confused adoptive parents.

It's also a bit ironic that it is precisely the nightingale's beautiful voice and verse that inspire the small birds to begin their attack.

So I think that the film also argues against the purity of "good" and "evil", and shows that each quality can also exist in its "opposite" (like in the famous yin and yang symbol) and can be "birthed" under the right circumstances.

I find the relative complexity interesting. But it does mean that neither "side" in the political/social debates about these issues (I doubt I need to specify what I'm talking about), if they manage to understand what it is saying in the first place, is likely to find this film satisfying.

The translation was a bit tricky because some of it was rhymed, but I think I ultimately came pretty close.

A somewhat odd, frantic, comedic slapstick film with some local Uzbek colour. There isn't really much of a lesson or point other than "the fox gets her comeuppance", though even that point is diluted because some other random animals get caught up in the events and are punished alongside her. Speaking of the colours, they are very nice and vibrant. The character designs, though, seem a bit overly complicated and often don't move very well. Salimov's next film would be better in this regard.

A pretty nice early, little-known film by the most internationally famous Uzbek animation director, Tulyahodzhayev. Serious and philosophical, with very nice drawings. The animation seems like it uses only key frames and no in-betweens, unfortunately -- the team was tiny, with only one animator, and I suppose it was decided to focus on detailed drawings over smooth motion.

The only dialogue are some important lines of poetry at the beginning and end. I could not make the translation rhyme, but I did try to keep it close in meaning and have the same number of syllables.

My interpretation of the three challenges is that the first is "romantic pursuit", the second is "career" (or something like it), and the third is a "midlife crisis", e.g. buying a sports car to try and bring back your youth.

A fairly early cartoon from Uzbekistan's national studio. The screenplay is ok, though nothing special. The colours are nice and bright, but the art design and animation are primitive. Thankfully, those things did get better soon.

This one does have some signs that were translated in the subtitles, but nothing really essential to the story.

I love the animated shapes in this one, though the actual love story isn't all that happy. A lady is changed by a man's interest, but he wants her to stay the same as when he met her, or (even better) to be a "sounding board" for him (so he tries to mould her into an "ear"). In the end, he "succeeds" in a way (killing off her love for him in the process), but nobody ends up happy with the result...

I could find almost no information about it - it's not on animator.ru or most other film databases, it just popped up suddenly on Uzbekfilm's YouTube channel.