I think (after reading what they wrote) that both the positive and negative critics have some good points, but overall this is a decent and charming film for very little kids. I'd put it about on par with one of Kachanov's early films, "Novice" (1961). The screenplay does a good job of expanding the original basic fairy tale by giving some more characterization to the bears before the scenes with the fox happen, while the art direction does try a bit too hard to be "naturalistic".

It was a decent start to Soyuzmultfilm's puppet tradition, even if it isn't as good as the films of Starevich in the 1910s or Ptushko & co. at Mosfilm in the 1930s.

I think this is the worst "animated" (if you can call it that) Soviet film released in 1954. Interesting maybe for historical reasons (and Stepantsev's debut as director), and maybe to get a small hint of the vibe of everyday life at the time, but not much else. Slow, plodding, lacking in subtlety and heavy-handed. This is the film that actually conforms to every negative stereotype that the uninformed have about Soviet cinema. The other social satire in that year's almanac, The Signature is Illegible, is so much better.

I'm sure it's partly due to the technique (live-action puppets are limited in what you can do with them), but the other film in this technique released that year, At a Summer Villa, is also much more interesting.

>>1
Heh. Well, no, I think it's just an adult hare; they're all very little, so he looks huge. But he's only a little bigger than the mother (at 7:34).

Although this adaptation is competently done, has some excellent singing and is considered a classic, I must admit that I find it a bit drawn out and dry myself. It's just extremely straightforward. It's an adaptation of a famous Chukovsky poem, of course, but I like some of the illustrated book editions more (such as the one illustrated by Yevgeniy Antonenkov), as they feel more playful.

As for animation, I much prefer the film Ivanov-Vano directed the following year. And in 1954, too, although it was a bit of a "dry" year in general, there are others I like better. Including "The Frog Princess", "Niko and Nikora", "The Signature is Illegible", "In the Heart of the Forest".

Rescued by a hare the size of a wolf. ????

Are the animals in the front row caricatures of Soviet music critics from the period?

Though the early Merry-Go-Rounds (from the 1960s) are more famous, I think they continued to be pretty good even as the studio began falling apart in the 1990s. This one is a good example - all of the entries are pretty strong. For the last, this isn't surprising and its director (Golovanova) was a veteran. But the first two are strong first works by new directors.

The style of the first should be immediately recognizable for fans of Vladimir Tarasov, as Koshkin was his art director, and a big part of what made those films so great. So it is here - the story could easily be boring, but the well-drawn art, characters, and inventive camera angles make it shine. Unfortunately, Koshkin never did get the chance to do any more directing.

The other new director, Guryev, was more lucky. His segment here adapts a literary original that is practically unadaptable (because it's like a miniature "Finnegans Wake", relying heavily on wordplay and things you can only do in writing), and he solved the problem by almost ignoring the text and doing a similar thing purely with visuals. How do you even animate things seen through warped glass? I can't imagine. The fat cat would reappear in Guryev's later work.

"Little Ram" is an English absurdity - actually, far more absurd in the adaptation here than the original folk song is. There seems to be a lot of love for English absurdity in Russia (I could name quite a few animated examples, starting with the 1970s works of Andrey Hrzhanovskiy), and in the early 1990s it seems to have been especially trendy.

>>2
>Anyone else noticed there are no wolves in the audience?
Not until now, good catch!

Also, I edited my post above to cite a relevant book that I read once.

A collection of three short films. Although the intention of the Merry-Go-Round series was mainly to springboard young talent, in this edition, there was not a single "young" director - the two men had already directed a few critically-acclaimed full-length (10 minute) "solo" films of their own, while Galina Barinova (Petrov's wife) was on her seventh mini-film. For all three, this would be the last "Merry-Go-Round" they would ever participate in.

Barinova's film is on the shorter side even for her, and quite simple (though well executed).

The highlight of the three is definitely Anatoliy Petrov's. The art direction is amazing. It looks beautiful, and its realistic portrayal of the underwater world reminds me of Miyazaki's "Ponyo" (which came much later). He did a lot of research and all the animation, too (because of course - who else could have done it?). The plot reminded me of some other films: Bardin's The Ugly Duckling (2010) and Yelena Petkevich's Forest Tales (1997). Unlike in Bardin's film, nobody is really maliciously mean to our main character - the denizens of the deep are simply afraid, and he does not end up friendless - although the very end of both films is the same. Whereas with "Forest Tales", the main difference is in the ending: that firefly finds other fireflies like himself at the end (just like here), but comes to realize that the light of home is what he really desires.

Valeriy Ugarov's entry is a lot of stylistic wackiness and nice animation, but seems to lack (at least, for me) a really strong central idea, unless it's simply that underlings can often be more nasty than their bosses.

Anyone else noticed there are no wolves in the audience?