Animation Night 7: Soviet-bloc Animation!

originally posted at https://canmom.tumblr.com/post/621942...

canmom:

Tonight… I’m running rather behind schedule (hence this announcement post being so late), but I’m about to go live with some old school animation from Eastern Europe! Soviet animation has a rich history, and broader Eastern European animation even more so, so we’re only going to be scratching the surface tonight (while I do more research to make a better playlist next time!)

First up, we have the short Film! Film! Film! (1968) by Fyodor Khitrukabout, a story illustrating the process of film production in the early Brezhnev-era USSR. Hopefully the comedy holds up a little better than did Allegro non Troppo! (cw for brief references to suicide)

Second up, tonight’s main feature: the 1982 Bulgarian film The Treasure Planet, not to be confused with the later Disney take on the concept. Stephenson’s pirate story goes into space, featuring some wonderfully bizarre settings and creature concepts. We will be watching the dub since I don’t have a copy of subtitles for the Bulgarian version.

Finally, we have Rainy Story (1988) by the major USSR animation house Soyuzmutfilm. This came pretty late in the studio’s life, near the demise of the USSR itself, when artists were (I am told) experimenting more with personal styles. Rainy Story features fully painted animation frames which is a gorgeous look.

We’ll finish up by looking at a more recent, post-Soviet Russian film, The Old Man and the Sea (1999), which has been quite influential in its unusual, stained glass style which earned it the Academy Award in 2000. I have not seen this, so I’m looking forward to witnessing it for myself!

Then we’ll wrap up with a few more examples from @cyborg-sevalle​‘s wonderful music video playlist.

Come to twitch.tv/canmom starting in just a minute to see some of these animated films!

All of the above turned out to be great! We also watched a bunch more Eastern European animation, so let me make a quick list with Youtube links. (Sadly a lot of these are in sub-HD resolution and/or have severe compression artefacts, but I don’t presently have a better source for most. Not that you’d know the difference once it’s gone through Twitch anyway ><)

• Film! Film! Film! (USSR, 1968)
• The Treasure Planet [dub] (Bulgaria, 1982) [original bulgarian audio]
• Rainy Story (USSR, 1988)
• The Old Man and the Sea (Russia, 1999) - this has some incredible oil-painted animation which you gotta witness
• Travels of an Ant (USSR, 1983)
• Tango (Poland, 1980)
• The Bremen Town Musicians (USSR, 1969)
• Polygon - Firing Range (USSR, 1977) - cw racist depictions particularly at the end
• The Butterfly (USSR, 1972)