Film Film Film (1968), an award-winning Soviet animated short (
1,
2), depicts the many unalloyed joys of filmmaking, from writer's block to studio censorship, working with children, unforeseen script revisions, delays, running over budget, technical difficulties, and uncertain audience reception.
The YouTube videos are captioned where necessary. The actual short eschews (intelligible) dialogue and requires little to no Russian. It's also available on DVD as part of volume one of the
Masters of Russian Animation series.
The opening song is performed by Sokol ("Falcon"), one of the earliest, if not
the earliest, Soviet rock band (please enjoy an
unintelligible Google translation of the band's
fan bio). Here's a
RuTube link to their earliest song, «Где тот край»/"Where is That Land," and
another to their later song «Солнце над нами»/"The Sun Above Us." They don't sound half bad!
Drawing on a variety of contemporary Brit-pop and rock inspirations, the band explored several musical directions between its formation in 1964 and disbanding in 1969, when its members finished their university studies and entered the regular workforce. The theme song to
Film Film Film is their only lasting mark on popular culture.
posted by louche mustachio at 4:46 PM on March 9, 2011 [3 favorites]