Tag Archives: Fantasy

The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1967)

Posted on February 25, 2014 at 12:04 am by Jeff Kuykendall

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 →

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Vassilisa the Beautiful (1939)

Posted on February 15, 2014 at 2:34 pm by Jeff Kuykendall

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 →

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Ruslan and Ludmila (1972)

Posted on January 31, 2014 at 11:48 pm by Jeff Kuykendall

Ruslan and Ludmila (1972) was the last bow for Russian director and animator Aleksandr Ptushko, who would die shortly after the film’s release, aged 72. Ptushko began his career as a pioneer of stop-motion animation, directing one of the earliest … Continue reading →

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