There have also been some references to The Scarlet Flower, a Russian Beauty and the Beast tale. The film--without dubbing or subtitles, alas--is available on YouTube, broken into three chapters. I am linking them here for your viewing pleasure. I haven't watched them in their entirety, but they are as beautiful visually as everyone claims. This one is available on DVD with English dubbing as Mikhail Baryshnikov's Stories From My Childhood, Vol. 4: Beauty & the Beast. And before anyone thinks I didn't know, there is also an English language picture book of the tale, out of print unfortunately, The Scarlet Flower: A Russian Folk Tale.
The other chapters:
I haven't watched it yet, but I tracked down this English dub (rescored--alas!). I'm not sure if there's been any cutting aside from the main titles, but I figured it was worth posting!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_OH2qdHRaFc&
There's also a live-action Russian movie version of "Scarlet Flower", which has the bad fairy still living with the Beast, which I thought was an interesting twist.
ReplyDeleteI really should go watch the undubbed version above; the version I have has terrible music. But I really do love seeing these other takes on the story.
~Lylassandra
Ooh, Lylassandra, do you know where we can see the Live Action adaptation? Is it any good?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it's on youtube, but I bought it from Amazon a while back. Like Panna a Netvor, the Beast is not an animal-- here he's a forest spirit or something-- and Beauty, while still a bit of a cipher, is portrayed as sort of an odd dreamer. It was definitely interesting, and captured some of the loneliness at the center of the tale very well.
ReplyDelete~Lylassandra
We've taken over the comments for several posts now! *grin*
ReplyDeleteIf you don't mind me pestering you a bit further, is it just titled "The Scarlet Flower"? Is there a year, director name or a Russian title I ought to be searching?
i've been trying to watch a few russian animated films on you tube. they're just beautiful! thanks for posting about this one :D
ReplyDeleteThe director is Irina Povolotskaya, the first billed actors are Lev Durov and Marina Ilyichyova. Enjoy!
ReplyDelete~Lylassandra
I saw this serialized as a kid in the 50's, in S. California on "Sheriff John's Lunch Brigade," and the image of the beast has haunted me ever since. The dubbing was quite good, and the chapter titles were evocative ("Beauty Hears the Beast," "Beauty Sees the Beast," etc.). There was also a "Tinder Box" cartoon I recall seeing several times, with genuinely frightening dogs "with eyes as big as saucers," etc.
ReplyDelete