Summaries of Songs of the Years of Fire, A Hot Stone, Little Music Box, War Chronicles and Victorious Destination as presented in the Soyuzmultfilm Studios collection "Animated Soviet Propaganda".Pesni ognennyh let (Songs of the Years of Fire)
Inessa Kovalevskaya, 1971
An aggressively stirring verve sets this patriotic powerhouse apart. Recalling Walt Disney's Fantasia it puts to dynamic animation - predominantly hued in bold reds and yellows to evoke the Soviet flag - popular wartime music ranging from invigorating marches to romantic laments for the fallen. Watch Songs of the Years of Fire.
Goryachiĭ kamen' (A Hot Stone)
Perch Sarkissian, 1965
Offered an opportunity to reclaim his youth and live again for the completion of a suspiciously pseudo-Sisyphean task, an old man decides he's happy with the life he lived for he was lucky enough to be a part of the Bolshevik Revolution and to have a hand in upholding the resulting Soviet Union against capitalism. From Arkady Gaidar's short story "The Hot Stone", this nicely drawn piece solemnly acknowledges beneath a furrowed brow that the USSR's glory days are in the past, but takes the stance that those days shan't be traded for even the greatest treasure. An amorphous red shape - presumably a war-tattered flag - then reforms itself again and again to represent strength in the people of the Revolution. The Millionaire's Yuri Prytkov takes an assistant credit. Watch A Hot Stone.
Organchik (Little Music Box)
Nikolai Khodataev, 1933
A sharp satire of tsarist Russia notable for being shelved under Stalin along with anything related to the work of writer Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin, a chapter of whose novel "Story of One Town" this piece is based upon. The ban subsequently drove Nikolai Khodataev to call it quits after only one more film. A self-involved Tsar appoints a new general to Dummy-Town using the sole criterium, "whomever is louder." The general is equipped with the titular item, said to "replace all human reasoning," thereby aiding the execution of his celebrated duties which include "wearing dress uniform," "zealously eliminating free-thinking," and "fundamentally destroying any ordinary person for the benefit of the treasury." Features a dance sequence choreographed by Olga Khodatayeva. Watch Little Music Box.
Boyeviye Stranitsiy (War Chronicles)
Dmitry Babichenko, 1939
What begins an obscenely overt lambaste of the USSR's enemies inventively animated against a background of smoke rings becomes an memorial to Soviets who fought those enemies before posing an unusually vindictive threat. Yet again red is the predominant color utilized to depict Soviets. Watch War Chronicles.
Pobednyĭ marshrut (Victorious Destination)
Leonid Amalrik, Dmitry Babichenko & Viktor Pokolnikov, 1939
Simple metaphors for the Bolsheviks' naysayers chart Stalin's first three "Five Year Plans," which saw the abolishing of the New Economic Policy and included the expunging of countless non-collectivist farmers in favor of industry - an ode similarly optimistic to but oppositely conducted from Plus Electrification, which predicts a cooperative future (not unlike the one suggested by Results of a XII Party Congress of Cooperation's urgings). Meanwhile the "Cult of Lenin" persists as an icon for the people. Villainizing its antagonists as barbarous dimwits, Victorious Destination objectively outranks other Stalinist posters such as the backward Someone Else's Voice, and benefits from Dmitry Babichenko's distinctive design work. Watch Victorious Destination.
