Tag Archives: fairy tale

The Snow Maiden (1968)

Continuing our foray into the colorful world of Russian fairy tale cinema, The Snow Maiden (1968), like its protagonist, has a foot in two different worlds. It has touches of the candy-coated, hyper-imaginative fairy tale films of Aleksandr Ptushko (Sadko, … Continue reading

Posted in Theater Fantastique | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on The Snow Maiden (1968)

The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1967)

Aleksandr Ptushko’s penultimate special effects fantasy (before the sublime Ruslan and Ludmila) was The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1967), based on another of Pushkin’s poems and filled with rhyming dialogue and rich storybook imagery. The film opens with a Pushkin … Continue reading

Posted in Theater Fantastique | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1967)

Vassilisa the Beautiful (1939)

When we think of Russian cinema, we think of Sergei Eisenstein, Andrei Tarkovsky, Dziga Vertov. But we can learn just as much about Russia by looking at a genre that held great popularity among its people for decades: the fairy … Continue reading

Posted in Theater Fantastique | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Vassilisa the Beautiful (1939)