Just found this on youtube and came here immediately to comment.
I could disparage the quality of everything associated with this video (and give my thoughts on the economics of soviet socialism), but that's not what this version of
The Fellowship of the Ring deserves.
Without standard equipment, personnel, budget, nor an authorized and uncensored translation... and shown on state run soviet television, I imagine this production was made on faith, nurtured by hope, and borne of love. I loved
The Lord of the Rings so much that I read it over twenty times between 1981 and 1991 (the production date of this video).
Although this production (translated as Khraniteli... the Keepers) lacks almost every virtue and necessary component of contemporary American television and film making, I feel it has one admirable quality. It stems from a tradition of oral storytelling. Explosions, nudity, cgi, and jump cuts form the basis of our moving picture stories. It's a big step in storytelling from the drawings at Lascaux, but in the meanwhile humans have relied upon oral and written stories. For me, Khraniteli hearkens to the tradition of listening to a story... the video is merely a visual aid to the vocal communication. While listening, I have to keep my brain alert in order to process the information presented... but when viewing contemporary film and television, I can keep my brain shut down.
For example, one of my nephews saw the GI Joe movie when he was eight and he begged me to watch it with him. I did my best to control my criticisms, but when the bad guys blew the polar ice cap in order to crush GI Joe's secret underwater base I had to stop the film. I got each of us a glass of ice water and asked him if he noticed anything about the movie. I began repeatedly pushing my ice cubes down into my glass only to watch them surface and my eight year old nephew whispered, "Ice doesn't sink." I'm sure there are GI Joe fans older than eight who've never considered this.
We can turn off our brains to such a degree that we can be spoonfed sinking ice. I'm not saying Khraniteli is perfect, I'm saying that I need to stop and appreciate a medium of story that keeps my brain on.
Khraniteli does not push the narrative of Western European cultural superiority nor that of capitalism, probably the reason Tolkien's opus was censored by the soviets. I don't think the Khraniteli pushes the idyllic communistic Shire versus the corrupt industrialized Mordor either... a fear of some westerners. It tries to be a story about fighting the good fight, being brave, and resisting evil. It tries to be a story about valuing friendship and community.
The only criticism I have is that Khraniteli may have inspired the teletubbies. As the four hobbits leave the Shire, they dance around to the sounds of pipe and fiddle while wrapped in red, yellow, green and tan cloaks.
Follow this link and skip to the 27:00 minute mark.
Finally, I assume the producer, if not everyone involved, had some visual understanding of non soviet television standards... and still they made Kraniteli, a visual travesty that can only be explained by love.
arstechnica.com
