A fairy tale, a musical. The most famous film adaptation of the play of the same name by the Belgian writer and playwright Maurice Meterlik, staged by two superpowers of those years (the USSR and the USA), namely the studios Lenfilm and Twentieth Century Fox under the direction of director George Cukor (staged "Philadelphia Story" and my favorite picture "My Fair Lady"). And since I am not familiar with the original play, I will evaluate the picture as an independent work. And I stumbled upon this picture by chance - and now I'm glad that I didn't pass by, and took the time to do it. And here's my brief opinion for you - An incredibly strong Soviet-American fairy tale. Only good impressions (and a wet handkerchief) remained from the viewing, but, in addition to the pros (which certainly paint this picture), I have to cancel its cons (which are not so noticeable, but you need to pay attention to them). And this should be the end of such an important introduction and get to the point.
So, the pros: 1. Scenario - the picture focuses on children, brother Tiltil and sister Mytil, who, after a childish prank, and the subsequent punishment from their mother, wake up at home, where a sorceress in red asks them to find the famous Blue Bird for a sick girl. The children agree, and on this journey they will be accompanied by an interesting company, where each of its representatives is a very bright personality, and most of them wish victory to our brave children. All of them will have to pass tests, know the wrath of the forest, visit the dungeon of the Lady of the Night herself, see and understand what Pleasure is and much more. During the trip, children will become strong, brave, understand what the Big World is, learn a lot, and most importantly, they will begin to appreciate their relatives, especially mom and dad. What about the Bluebird? Guess for yourself. The children in this picture cause sympathy, you worry about them, you wish them victory. And the company mates themselves teach them a lot and try to protect them from irreparable things. Yes, and the dialogues are pleasing - it feels like real people are talking. There is a subtext in the script, there is a moral, there is an instruction - everything that is needed for a good children's fairy tale (and not stupid entertainment, as it is now accepted).
2. Kindness and light - the picture is literally filled with these eternal concepts. She literally breathes them. When watching, anger, envy, aggression, goes into the darkest depths of the human soul, so that the viewer forgets about them at least for the time of viewing. All the adventures and temptations for the main characters are presented as correctly as possible, the sharp corners are greatly smoothed, while the idea itself is clearly clear to both children (the main target audience) and adults.
3. Emotions - when viewing this bright and kind picture, it is impossible not to feel emotions. And mostly from happiness, although there is also sadness, because the young actors did their best, and we are worried about them. I wasn't joking about the wet handkerchief - it's true. In an hour and a half, I got so used to the heroes that I couldn't hold back my tears in the finale.
4. Actors - just listen to who starred here: Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Robert Morley, Jane Fonda, Margarita Terekhova, Georgy Vitsin, Igor Dmitriev, Sergey Filippov and so on. And they all play here, in this joint picture. Two great acting schools, both equal in their performance. Yes, just for the sake of this, it is worth seeing this picture, because there were very few such joint works, and therefore each of them should be appreciated.
So, the cons: 1. Adventure with the forest - here the writers clearly did not put the squeeze on the moral message. After all, this adventure ends quite quickly, while it feels that there clearly should have been more than anything. It was possible to add a kind of ecological message wrapped in the shell of a children's fairy tale, but alas - this episode is the shortest of the whole series of adventures.
2. Few adventures are more of a quibble (not affecting the final score in any way), but I wanted even more adventures, even in the present, even in the future, it was possible to talk about class inequality (the beginning of the picture is just about this, but then they forget about this moment at all). But considering the budget of the picture (twelve lemons of cabbage leaves), the creators could connect the imagination and disperse, because at that time the budget was decent. But alas, we have what we have.
A little bit about the main characters: 1. Tyltyl performed by Todd Lukinland and Mitil performed by Patsy Kensit are a brother and sister who go on a journey in pursuit of a Blue Bird, while showing their best qualities. They are not capricious, kind, brave and courageous, so they will be able to achieve their goal, despite all the machinations of enemies. As already mentioned, the young actors coped perfectly! Clever girls!
2. Light, mom and a number of other characters performed by Elizabeth Taylor - the best Cleopatra of all time plays several roles here, but the most important of them is mom Tiltil and Mitil - a simple woman who daily performs a feat that is not often sung. But the character Light is a vivid reminder of this feat. My Lady Elizabeth was great here! Bravo!
Of course, there were some incidents during the filming. For example, Jane Fonda behaved with Russian colleagues just disgusting (although in the picture her mistress Night was very convincing). Although her behavior is understandable, because the picture was shot in 1975 - it was in that year that the barefoot peasants of this country kicked the star stripes out of Vietnam (I have greatly simplified here, but you understand the essence). And in financial terms, the picture was not very good - it failed miserably at the American box office, but in the USSR, on the contrary, it was a furious success. And what about today? Yes, this picture is almost forgotten, it is not shown on the "box", whether there will be a restoration of the picture is unknown. It's a pity, because this is a great family movie that NEEDS to be SHOWN to children and their parents, and to educate the younger generation on such a movie, only then we will have a future.
My rating is 10 out of 10 and my recommendation for viewing!
So, the pros: 1. Scenario - the picture focuses on children, brother Tiltil and sister Mytil, who, after a childish prank, and the subsequent punishment from their mother, wake up at home, where a sorceress in red asks them to find the famous Blue Bird for a sick girl. The children agree, and on this journey they will be accompanied by an interesting company, where each of its representatives is a very bright personality, and most of them wish victory to our brave children. All of them will have to pass tests, know the wrath of the forest, visit the dungeon of the Lady of the Night herself, see and understand what Pleasure is and much more. During the trip, children will become strong, brave, understand what the Big World is, learn a lot, and most importantly, they will begin to appreciate their relatives, especially mom and dad. What about the Bluebird? Guess for yourself. The children in this picture cause sympathy, you worry about them, you wish them victory. And the company mates themselves teach them a lot and try to protect them from irreparable things. Yes, and the dialogues are pleasing - it feels like real people are talking. There is a subtext in the script, there is a moral, there is an instruction - everything that is needed for a good children's fairy tale (and not stupid entertainment, as it is now accepted).
2. Kindness and light - the picture is literally filled with these eternal concepts. She literally breathes them. When watching, anger, envy, aggression, goes into the darkest depths of the human soul, so that the viewer forgets about them at least for the time of viewing. All the adventures and temptations for the main characters are presented as correctly as possible, the sharp corners are greatly smoothed, while the idea itself is clearly clear to both children (the main target audience) and adults.
3. Emotions - when viewing this bright and kind picture, it is impossible not to feel emotions. And mostly from happiness, although there is also sadness, because the young actors did their best, and we are worried about them. I wasn't joking about the wet handkerchief - it's true. In an hour and a half, I got so used to the heroes that I couldn't hold back my tears in the finale.
4. Actors - just listen to who starred here: Elizabeth Taylor, Ava Gardner, Robert Morley, Jane Fonda, Margarita Terekhova, Georgy Vitsin, Igor Dmitriev, Sergey Filippov and so on. And they all play here, in this joint picture. Two great acting schools, both equal in their performance. Yes, just for the sake of this, it is worth seeing this picture, because there were very few such joint works, and therefore each of them should be appreciated.
So, the cons: 1. Adventure with the forest - here the writers clearly did not put the squeeze on the moral message. After all, this adventure ends quite quickly, while it feels that there clearly should have been more than anything. It was possible to add a kind of ecological message wrapped in the shell of a children's fairy tale, but alas - this episode is the shortest of the whole series of adventures.
2. Few adventures are more of a quibble (not affecting the final score in any way), but I wanted even more adventures, even in the present, even in the future, it was possible to talk about class inequality (the beginning of the picture is just about this, but then they forget about this moment at all). But considering the budget of the picture (twelve lemons of cabbage leaves), the creators could connect the imagination and disperse, because at that time the budget was decent. But alas, we have what we have.
A little bit about the main characters: 1. Tyltyl performed by Todd Lukinland and Mitil performed by Patsy Kensit are a brother and sister who go on a journey in pursuit of a Blue Bird, while showing their best qualities. They are not capricious, kind, brave and courageous, so they will be able to achieve their goal, despite all the machinations of enemies. As already mentioned, the young actors coped perfectly! Clever girls!
2. Light, mom and a number of other characters performed by Elizabeth Taylor - the best Cleopatra of all time plays several roles here, but the most important of them is mom Tiltil and Mitil - a simple woman who daily performs a feat that is not often sung. But the character Light is a vivid reminder of this feat. My Lady Elizabeth was great here! Bravo!
Of course, there were some incidents during the filming. For example, Jane Fonda behaved with Russian colleagues just disgusting (although in the picture her mistress Night was very convincing). Although her behavior is understandable, because the picture was shot in 1975 - it was in that year that the barefoot peasants of this country kicked the star stripes out of Vietnam (I have greatly simplified here, but you understand the essence). And in financial terms, the picture was not very good - it failed miserably at the American box office, but in the USSR, on the contrary, it was a furious success. And what about today? Yes, this picture is almost forgotten, it is not shown on the "box", whether there will be a restoration of the picture is unknown. It's a pity, because this is a great family movie that NEEDS to be SHOWN to children and their parents, and to educate the younger generation on such a movie, only then we will have a future.
My rating is 10 out of 10 and my recommendation for viewing!