Soviet Movies: The Stone Flower, 1946.

Following WWII, the Soviet Union commenced looting German villages. One of their prizes was coloured film, which they passed on to our old favourite, Mr Ptushko so he could make The Stone Flower. This story is adapted from a a number of folktales from the Ural Mountains which were collected as The Malachite Casket. Our main character, Danilo, is played by Vladimir Druzhnikov who would later provide voices in Mystery of the Third Planet which is a cool sci-fi cartoon, and the film features no-one else who I am familiar with. It begins with an entire village worth of children asking their old hobo of a grandfather to tell them a story around the fire. Cozy. I hope this ends with my favourite of all Slavic fairy-tale endings when the narrator mentions that it was all true for they were there and drank wine which flowed through their moustache but not into their mouth. We shall see. I am watching this in its native Russian.

The story starts with some ass-hole stone-carver whom I hope gets exiled to Siberia on account of general douchebagery before switching to a much more calm scene of Danilo sitting in the woods. It looks great. Birch trees, painted backdrops, the sun’s rays passing through the branches, wildlife, and comfy peasant clothing. The clothing reminds me of that kid from Moomin. The lizard-queen asks Danilo to play her a jaunty tune then he goes home to get his ass beat and get hired as the new apprentice stone-carver. The details here aren’t too important, you just need to know that Danilo is a good-hearted, if scatter-brained kid who’s got an eye for the stone. The ass-hole from earlier ends up being a bit more sympathetic as time goes on which I’d say is a mark of good writing and acting. In true Soviet fashion, a nobleman and a landlord (who kind of looks like a TOS Klingon) are introduced as villains proper.

A love-interest is introduced half-and-hour into the film, and considering this is only 80 minutes, that seems rather late. Her role in the film is tertiary; she serves as a foil not to another character but to the titular Stone Flower which Danilo must carve. She represents a mis-aligned work-life balance which is clearly being set up to result in tragedy and eventually the self-actualization of Danilo. It is tried but it is true. Some times keeping it simple truly is the correct option. This theme of Danilo’s dedication is heightened as he learns of a mystical Stone Flower owned by the Mistress of Copper Mountain which is so beautiful that if a man sees it, he will become a gnome and spend the rest of his days making beautiful carvings but lose your past life. This is an excellent idea of a D&D item or even a whole adventure. Expect to see me steal this at some point in the future.

More D&D inspiration comes in the form of a forest-spirit instructing our hero to come to Serpent Hill at the first snow-fall. Protip, if a tree-apparition ever gives you these instructions, it’s probably best to ignore them. This movie even has a dungeon crawl! Danilo goes past a series of secret doors into the sparkling gnome-caves of the Mistress of Copper Mountain in search of a powerful relic. The music during this scene is swell. There’s also a dorky “test” near the end that reminds me of one of those omnipotent aliens in TOS that loses their shit over Kirk showing mercy. But still, the reward is a crate full of gemstones aka XP so I’ll include this as D&D content.

This film features no dancing bears and no Baba Yaga but it does feature a classic Slavic barn-burner with lots of dancing and Kalinka being played in the background. Apparently Bazhov, the folklorist who initially collected the tale was disappointed in the use of Kalinka and had hoped for traditional Ural music to be played. I understand his position but I think Ptushko made the right decision as the much more popular song would make the film more accessible to film-goers. The film is quite slow, largely due to the lack of active antagonist working against the characters but the absolutely stunningly beautiful last 20 minutes make up for this – the caves are basically the cover to UK1 Beyond the Crystal Cave. This film could be described as timeless in its themes and although not the most action-packed film, it was enjoyable in it’s own right. One Thumb Up Seal of Approval.

ps the film did not end with the old man talking about wine dripping through his moustache.