The Magic Weaver
Original Russian title: Марья-искусница
Directed by: Alexander Row
You know, there are times when I think that my taste in movies is
terminally juvenile.
Nowadays, when someone uses the term «fantasy film,» they
mean grand, sweeping epics on the order of Peter Jackson’s Lord Of
The
Rings films. But once upon a time, «fantasy films» were
pretty much for the kiddies. Fairy tales.
Surprisingly, a big boom of fairy tale cinema occurred in the least
likely of places: the Soviet Union. Especially in the fifties and early
sixties, lots of inventive kiddie films, most of them based on
traditional Russian and European folk tales, popped up in Soviet
Russia. Most of these were the work of two talented directors:
Alexander Row and Alexander Ptushko.
Of the two, it’s clear that Ptushko was the greater artist. He had an
eye for detail and a grand, sweeping vision that tended to transcend
the normally skinny Mosfilm budgets. Row was the more prolific of the
two. While he may not have had quite the artistic sweep of Ptushko’s
best work, he more than made up for it in crazed inventiveness.
Surprisingly, in the then commie-phobic USA, many of these found their
way into American kiddie matinées in dubbed versions, mostly
distributed by Allied Artists. Inevitably, these films were bowdlerized
and robbed of their Russian-ness. For example, Ptushko’s version of the
classic Russian legend Sadko became The Magic Voyage of
Sinbad in its
trip across the Bering Strait. Likewise, Row’s rendition of the classic
children’s story Morozko became Jack Frost in its
dubbed version.
If either of these are ringing a bell, most likely you’re a faithful
viewer of TV’s «Mystery Science Theater 3000».
If you ask the cast and crew of MST to choose their favourites of all
the films they watched, inevitably the Russian films are mentioned. Not
because they are bad (though they can be corny and goofy in more or
less equal measures), but because they are fun. I mean, put Jack
Frost
up against anything by Coleman Francis, and it can’t help but
look
good. Most of the films they did were genuinely bad to the point of
unwatchability, with many scenes about as cinematic as watching still
pictures hanging on the wall. (I’m lookin’ at you, Monster A Go Go!)
But the Russian films had a sort of manic energy that’s totally
infectious. Sure, they’re juvenile as hell, but at least there’s
characterization, plot, and the feeling that someone actually cared
about the project enough to put some effort into it. At least something
actually happens in them!
In any case, I was so impressed by the Russian films—also including The
Sword and the Dragon (based on the legendary folk hero Ilya
Muromets)
and The Day The Earth Froze (a Russo-Finnish goodwill
co-production
based on stories from the Kalevala)—that I had to go and search out
more of them. To my great fortune, Ruscico has seen fit to reissue many
of Ptushko’s and Row’s output on DVD. One that’s so far eluded them is
Марья-искусница, released in English as The Magic Weaver.
After a diligent search for some time, I finally managed to track down
an old VHS copy of this film, one of Row’s oddest films. The good news
is it includes the (very much of its time) American theatrical trailer
to the film. («In Fairyland Color!») The bad news is it’s
an EP-speed transfer from a well-worn print of the film. You know
you’re in for rough going, image-quality-wise, when the tape’s label
bears the
suggestion, «For best picture adjust VCR tracking
control.»
The opening credits roll, and a retired soldier introduces himself to
the audience in a booming dubbed-on voice. He doesn’t fool around; he
immediately starts marching through the birch forest, accompanying
himself on his snare drum as he sings a song about how wonderful the
life of a soldier is.
I’m certain this worked better in the original Russian version. The guy
dubbing the soldier may have an impressive speaking voice, but he’s
totally tone-deaf as a singer. Not only that, but his off-key bellowing
totally drowns out the orchestra. Still, it’s rather amusing to see
«wild» hawfinches and jackrabbits accompanying him in his
little tune.
Moving swiftly on, the soldier rests on an old tree stump and breaks
bread. He shares some of his lunch with some talking squirrels, who
voice their appreciation for his generosity. His meal is interrupted by
cries for help. He goes to see what the problem is, only to find a
couple of young bear cubs crying that their grandfather is stuck in a
trap. Say what you will, the way the bear cubs’ speech seems to almost
match their mouth movements is somewhat impressive.
He finds Grandfather Bear with his foot in a trap built from what looks
like an old caiman skull. The soldier gives him something to drink from
an ornate ceramic flask (which I sincerely hope is water, but which is
probably supposed to be booze of some kind), then gets to work freeing
the bear’s leg. Meanwhile, Grandfather lets the cubs drink some of the
booze.
Underage bears drinking. So sad. What is this world coming to?
The elder bear warns of a creature of great evil lurking in the forest,
and it was he who set the trap. The soldier then bids the bears
farewell…and promptly finds the creature of great evil.
A small boy with a page-boy haircut?
No, it’s just a homeless moppet. His name is Ivanushka, and he’s all
alone because his father was lost in a blizzard some time ago, and his
mother (Maria) was captured by the Water Wizard due to her prodigious
weaving skills. The soldier suggests the two join forces in the search
for the kid’s mom.
To our great fortune, this film wastes no time with lots of boring
exposition, as they run into the Water Wizard almost immediately. Named
Oswald XVIII in the English version, he appears to them as a giant with
a pointy nose and a patriarchal beard who tries to step on them with
his shark-skin boots. (Well, I’m guessing they’re shark-skin, as they
have scales and menacing teeth painted on them.) The soldier
meanwhile threatens him by trying to summon his army comrades with his
drum. Oswald, who can’t abide noise, decides to bargain with them,
reducing himself to converse with the soldier eye-to-eye.
Ivanushka immediately demands to be shown to his mother. Oswald denies
having kidnapped Maria, but he allows them to be ferried to his
underwater kingdom in exchange for the soldier’s drum. The soldier
doesn’t immediately surrender his drum, but the three of them are
teleported to the underwater kingdom all the same.
The underwater kingdom is a pretty impressive set, with a giant
staircase, coral hand-railings and giant glowing spiral shells standing
in for buildings. The «underwater» effect is done on the
cheap via a superimposed image of rippling water, but I, at least, am
able to suspend disbelief.
In a scene guaranteed to make you think someone spiked your cola with
something psychotropic. Oswald tries to scare them with various
underwater creatures, a couple of which are clearly fish out of water,
but most of which appear to be some sort of weird puppets. Making
freaky noises. It’s a lot freakier than my description makes it sound,
trust me.
They remain unimpressed. Oswald summons Croak, his annoying lackey, a
bald, stuttering, capering frog-man. Then he whirls around a la Wolf
Devil Woman, prompting a change in wardrobe (comprising a decorated
fishing net and strings of buoys) and leads them into his palace.
Via a very stylized wipe, we’re transported to the dungeon cell where
Maria is imprisoned. She’s weaving an elaborate tapestry of Ivanushka’s
face offset by peacock feathers and lamenting her separation from her
son. Jeez, this lady’s awfully co-dependent. Her son seems to be doing
fine (by comparison) without her. Anyway, she just sits their, weaving
and sobbing as Russian women in these sorts of films tend to do. Had
Tsui Hark directed this film, she would have taken out Oswald long ago
with the aid of some flying silk surplices and couple of roundhouse
kicks to the head. But that’s as may be…
She sees (or possibly hallucinates) Ivanuschka speaking to her through
the tapestry. She runs to the gate and demands to be set free. Enter a
wicked, ghostly witch in a white ball-gown carrying a lorgnette. Her
hairstyle is too uncannily similar to that of Rudy from Wolf
Devil
Woman for comfort. And her angular facial-features, complete with
long,
pointed putty nose, suggest she’s related to Oswald somehow. She’s
named Ттушка-Непогодушка in the Russian version, but the English dub
refers to her as «Auntie Bedwetter», which I’m assuming is
a very loose translation. Anyway, since Ттушка-Непогодушка is just too
much for my poor fingers to type repeatedly, Auntie Bedwetter it shall
remain.
She immediately starts threatening Maria, and demands that she return
to her bench. Auntie Bedwetter then starts capering around like a
lunatic, hypnotizing Maria into forgetting her cares. She brainwashes
her into repeating phrases like, «Freedom or slavery, it is all
one!»
In the meantime, Oswald is leading our heroes through a disturbingly
vaginal-looking antechamber into his throne room. He introduces him to
his servants, first a gargling turtle-man with a walrus moustache, then
to a mad, whistling lobster in bondage, guarded by a long-legged,
foppish lobster man.
No, I’m not making any of this up. And I’m not on drugs! Stop looking
at me like that!
He then introduces him to his chief treasurer and his assistants. He
claims he’s an expert at arithmetic, but he seems only capable of empty
flattery, saying that he has an astounding, impressive amount of
treasure without giving any specific figures.
No, folks, no heavy-handed anti-capitalist allegory intended here.
He
then introduces his huntsmen, who were seven drowned pirates whom
Oswald revived. They do a bizarre song and dance number, which
apparently so overwhelmed the English dubbing crew that they just left
the song un-dubbed. I can only imagine what the reaction at the time to
pirates suddenly singing a rough and jaunty song in Russian must have
been.
Oswald offers them all seven pirates in exchange for the soldier’s
drum, but they don’t accept his offer. Undaunted, he then produces an
old box, looking something like a jewelry box. Inside are six miniature
dancing mermaids, whom the three of them observe through the magic of a
rear-projection process shot. Everyone’s lulled to sleep by the dancing
mermaids, except for Croak, who tries to steal the soldier’s drum as he
nods off. Ivanushka is still awake, though, and shouts at the sneaky
frog-man.
Oswald puts his guests up for the night. Croak shows them to their
ornate quarters, complete with heavily laden table. Ivanushka reaches
for something to eat, but the soldier warns, «Bread is bitter in
the house of an enemy.» So Ivanushka opens up his backpack and
shares some of his own food with the soldier.
Back in the throne room, Oswald convenes with Auntie Bedwetter, and is
pleased that she did so well in casting her spell on Maria. But she’s
sneezing all over the place, and he demands that she leave, lest she
infect him. Then the stuttering Croak announces that the soldier and
Ivanushka refused to eat the poisoned food provided them. In yet
another weird and confusing scene, Oswald demands that everyone think
on a solution to his problem. As everyone thinks, they lean at odd
angles while staying stood in fixed positions. It all looks like
something out of a Merce Cunningham ballet.
The pirates come out of their freakish trance and say, «It’s a
tough nut you’ve given us to crack, but too tough for us!» But
his treasurer suggests he convene with the ancient catfish. «I
don’t need him,» growls Oswald, «He’s an
intellectual!» But they consult him anyway, opening a lid
revealing lots of pink-tinted dry-ice fog. Oswald leaps down into the
pool to speak with the unseen catfish. Then, thanks to reverse film, he
emerges from the pool rapidly, with a cunning plan. He demands that his
granddaughter Alyonushka be brought before him and that his pirates
prepare themselves for action. He then sits on his throne, and promptly
springs out of his seat, screaming in pain.
It seems pretty little Alyonushka is the culprit, having placed a thorn
on his seat. She’s all pissed off because she’s friends with Maria, and
learns that he’s ordered a spell placed upon her. Deciding he needs her
on his side, he concocts a tale about his «swamp cousin, and his
horrible nephew» who are currently imprisoned because they want
to take Maria away.
Of course, she’s suspicious, and demands to see these horrible denizens
of the swamp. Back in their quarters, the soldier is comforting young
Ivanushka, who’s still missing his mom. He lulls the young boy to
sleep, and drifts off himself. Meanwhile, Oswald and his granddaughter
creep up to their room. He casts a spell on the room so that those on
either side of the window see a distorted, faceless image of those on
either side. Here Row utilizes cheap camera trick #437: warped mirror
effect.
This seems enough to convince Alyonushka that they’re horrible
monsters, so she goes along with her grandfather’s plan. She’s to take
Maria to a certain pool of boiling water and pronounce six magic charms
to «protect» her. But then, he sends Croak after her, to
push the girl in after she’s finished casting the spell.
Charming guy.
He then rouses his «guests», promising that they shall see
«many Marias». He then leads them to several giant
clam-shells full of treasure, saying they may take whichever item they
wish. The soldier doesn’t have his eyes for anything…until he finds an
enchanted harp with a jagged soundboard «mouth» and
articulated, moving eyes.
By now, every child in the audience would surely be screaming in terror.
Anyway, Oswald tries to talk him out of the hideous trinket, calling it
«junk». But the soldier seems dead set on taking it anyway,
so he’s forced to comply. In the meantime, we catch up with Alyonushka,
leading Maria to the side of a lake of dry-ice fog…er, I mean, boiling
water. This is another wacky, impressive set, surrounded by stalactites
and featuring a giant red octopus statue with glowing green eyes as its
centerpiece. As Alyonushka pronounces her spells, we see Maria
reflected in the lake, as five more Marias materialize beside her. Then
the reflections take form then she asks for the Marias to mix up so
that the real one can’t be identified. The bumbling Croak tries to push
Alyonushka in, but slips and falls in instead. He manages to crawl out
onto the octopus statue before being boiled to death, but now he’s
turned bright red! And he remains that way for the balance of the movie.
Say what you will about Alexander Row, you have to admire his
consistency and attention to detail.
In the throne room again, Oswald, in another gaudy costume complete
with trident (sheesh! This guy has more costume changes than Cher!),
unveils the six Marias and proclaims that if Ivanushka cannot identify
the correct one before the lobster whistles for the third time, she
must stay imprisoned. Also, the soldier at last surrenders his drum to
Oswald. Alyonushka lurks outside, realizing now that her grandfather
duped her. She creeps in, still hidden, behind Ivanushka and prompts
him, whispering to him that only his real mother will have warm, human
breath.
The scene which follows is, in its way, the most surreal of the entire
film, with six identical, transparent Marias standing motionless, a
wobbling red lobster off to the side producing curiously Theremin-like
whistles and little Ivanushka doing his darndest to look soulful amidst
all this lunacy. Buñuel himself could not have envisioned such a
scenario.
On the spot of the third wailing whistle, Ivanushka spots his real
mother. Naturally, Oswald takes his loss badly and, in spite of
protestations from his granddaughter, sets his huntsmen on them. But
the soldier is prepared for them, commanding the creepy-looking
enchanted harp to play a tune that will make the king and his henchmen
dance without rest. The next scene is even more lunatic than the one
that preceded it, with morris-dancing pirates and a break-dancing harp.
They’re led in a chorus of another Russian-language song by the
heretofore mute turtle man.
Outside, the soldier defends the rear flank as Ivanushka and Alyonushka
(who appears to be fast becoming his new adoptive sister) guide the
zombie Maria. In the throne room, the dance is getting ever more
crazed, involving reversed and sped-up footage, until at last Croak
pries the doors open, releasing the pirates in a mad rush.
Auntie Bedwetter spots the prisoners making their escape, so she sics
her carnivorous flying fish on them. They all manage to fly right past
our heroes, instead causing chaos for the press of pirates. As Maria
and the children make their escape, it’s time for the soldier to go
into the Russian equivalent of kung-fu payback, taking on all the
pirates at once. I guess the actor playing him was a pro wrestler at
one point, as the fight climaxes when he locks one guy in an airplane
spin.
Once again on dry land, the three are tailed by Croak. They come across
Grandfather Bear, who had been looking after the soldier’s backpack.
Meanwhile, Grandfather Bear confronts Croak, and demands that he return
to being an ordinary frog. Which he does, that is if you consider a
brilliant crimson frog in the middle of a Russian subarctic forest
«ordinary». Apparently, Alexander Row does.
They’re not out of the woods yet. Auntie Bedwetter is up to her
mischief, too. She summons a terrible thunderstorm to dissuade them
some more. But they manage to make it home. Still, Maria is still
ensorcelled and doesn’t recognize her own son. The soldier suggests
that everyone set to work to get their minds off their troubles. So
Ivanushka goes outside to gather firewood.
As he goes outside, Ivanushka passes by the well. And who should emerge
from the well but our old friend Oswald, who tries to drag the kid into
the well with him. At his first cry for help, Maria breaks out of her
trance and runs to her son’s aid. She’s soon joined by the others, and
it takes all four of them to drag Oswald’s bulky body onto dry land.
The rain dries up and the sun bursts out of the clouds. Auntie
Bedwetter’s spell broken, she is transformed into a starling and is
quickly gobbled up by Maria’s cat (Nothing particularly gruesome,
folks. Just some feathers, though it’s clear what’s supposed to have
happened). Meanwhile, Oswald dissolves into a harmless pool of water.
Maria thanks the soldier for all his help, and declares a celebration
is in order. The film ends with the soldier addressing the audience,
inviting them to the celebration.
I admit, I didn’t really have very high hopes for this film. How can
you make a feature film about a woman who works with textiles exciting?
Simple, you make her peripheral to the action. It goes without saying
that this film exceeded all my expectations. Like all Alexander Row
films, it’s goofy as hell, but tons of fun. I only hope that Gorky Film
Studio has a decent print of this to make a DVD out of. This film
definitely deserves better than an EP-speed VHS edition from a print
where all the colours have washed out.
My mention of Tsui Hark earlier was not accidental. There may be no
kung-fu in this film (unless you count the soldier’s airplane spin. I
don’t.), but this definitely has much of the visual density and intense
energy of Tsui Hark and many other such Chinese fantasy directors.
Alexander Row’s high-speed, «anything goes» approach to
filmmaking is highly appealing to me.
I think what really surprised me about the English version, though, was
how much Russian-ness bled through. One might chalk it up to laziness,
sort of like how the panelists got all tired (and drunk) on the last
episode of the week on «Match Game». But the fact that many
character names are Russian, no attempt is made to hide
quintessentially Russian things (hell, even some of the anti-capitalist
propaganda managed to leak through) and entire songs are sung in the
Russian language make this one an oddity. Compare it to the whole Magic
Voyage of «Sinbad» debacle and you see just how rare The
Magic Weaver truly is.
That said, I’d still like to see it in the original Russian some day.
IMDB Entry for
The Magic Weaver
BUY IT: on VHS from half.com.
Or
alternately, buy other films of Alexander Row on DVD from Amazon, using
the link below:
Click on Auntie Bedwetter to return.
©2004 by Progbear.