Concerning the involvement of Norstein in the making of this film, his own words about it in this recent interview might be of interest. Relevant excerpt (30:35-31:05):

> "Потом меня Иванов-Вано пригласил вторым режиссёром на фильм "Времена года". Это по Чайковскому, его альбом "Времена года". Я там очень... Там была художник Марина Соколова. Я там очень много как режиссёр и придумал. И кроме того я по существу был основной мультипликатор, потому что там, хотя там нас три или четыре мультипликатора, но практически 90% снято моей рукой."

> "Then, Ivanov-Vano invited me to be a second director on the film "The Seasons". It is based on Tchaikovsky, on his suite "The Seasons". The artist [maybe "art director"?] on this film was Marina Sokolova. As a director, I brought in a lot. And aside from that, I was basically the main animator, because – although there were three or four of us animators – in practice, 90% was filmed by me."

An interesting historical artifact, surprisingly well preserved (aside from the unfortunate lack of sound... I wonder if any documents survive that say what it was going to be like?). I don't, at the moment, know the reasons for why it was abandoned so close to completion. Maybe simply because socialist realism was in vogue then, and there are no penguins in the Arctic? Or maybe there was a strict deadline and they were unable to finish in time. Whatever the reason, the studio made no animated films after that year. No animation would be made in Ukraine again until 1959.

The "plot" doesn't seem to have much to it, but I'll bet the musical numbers would have done a lot to liven it up. To me, the idea of making a cartoon about a daring scientific expedition feels unusual and fresh, despite how silly the plot is.

The animation doesn't seem as nice as in The Conceited Chick (1936) by the same studio. For the human characters (at least their bodies), they clearly used rotoscoping. I'd say the overall animation quality might be somewhat better than what Georgia Film was doing at the time, a little worse than Soyuzmultfilm's average in that year, and significantly worse than the only animated film from Lenfilm, Jabzha (a gem that deserved to be distributed wider than it was).

For comparison, here are all the films from 1938 currently on the site.

The music, the screenplay, the direction and the camera work & scene layout are all pretty good. But I think the puppets and their animation lack the expressiveness to really make it work well.

There is none of the brilliant animation that can be seen in Roman Kachanov's puppet films. And no wonder, considering how rushed this production was. In the article linked above, Migunov wrote about how the team of Grigoriy Lomidze, which was working with live-action puppets and easily meeting all the deadlines (and hadn't had to set up an entire new production line), was getting all the praise from management.

He had tons of trouble getting a cast of the main character:

Besides the miniature and complex molds, we had to ensure the casting surface was flawless, as straightening was out of the question. And casting after casting failed. (We tried to find a way to manufacture rubber toys in a factory, but that required a metal mold for vulcanization, which was completely beyond our capabilities! So our only option was latex!)

I gradually began to get nervous. Deadlines were pressing, management was furious, and the workshop couldn't cope.

[...]

But finally, a more or less high-quality casting was achieved.
With bated breath, I began installation. And discovered I had miscalculated the shrinkage of the latex. It turns out that as it dries, it shrinks significantly over time: it shrinks almost twice as much. Who could have foreseen this? The mold was made with some allowance. But for the allowance to be so large...

I almost lost it. Somehow, by filing down the pins and shortening the frame levers, I managed to dress my hero. What's more, I even managed to insert a special mimic mechanism into the head, activated by a hidden screw on the back of the head. With great difficulty, the hero was born. Another problem emerged: latex can't be painted. Oil eats away at it. Gouache crumbles. Only special makeup made from pig fat or spermaceti has no effect on latex. But then again - it smears when touched.... Well, could there be a better cure for sleep?

I turned blue and my heart began to skip beats. [Studio director] Sinitsyn, as if sensing this, called me every day, several times a day, constantly taunting me with obscenities. One night (though later, at the end of filming), he got in a full charge. Burlakov - the production director of my picture - didn't have time to cut the line, but rushed to it when he realized I was about to recite my own piece. The recitation was impressive. Later, when I finished and handed in the picture, Sinitsyn told me he thought he'd dreamed the whole thing...

He was also unhappy about the animator:

Vadim Dolgikh was assigned to me - a very mediocre animator, to say the least. Lazy and lacking initiative, he brought no benefit to the film. And if he did contribute anything, it was only quantitative, but not qualitative. He was not subtle, not intuitive, not artistic. I tried to persuade Boris Dyozhkin to try moving things around. But, first of all, there was nothing to move yet. And, having familiarized himself with the armature (the spare one), he fiddled with it a little, apparently enjoying himself, but for some reason eluded any serious work.

Really a lovely tale!

The bell reminded me of a cursorily similar motif in the ending of "Lu Ling" (鹿铃, 'Deer Bell').

In that Chinese film, of course, the protagonist lets her new friend go and is left with a sweet memory instead of a bitter one.

>>4
>Are the animals in the front row caricatures of Soviet music critics from the period?
I don't know...

I think (after reading what they wrote) that both the positive and negative critics have some good points, but overall this is a decent and charming film for very little kids. I'd put it about on par with one of Kachanov's early films, "Novice" (1961). The screenplay does a good job of expanding the original basic fairy tale by giving some more characterization to the bears before the scenes with the fox happen, while the art direction does try a bit too hard to be "naturalistic".

It was a decent start to Soyuzmultfilm's puppet tradition, even if it isn't as good as the films of Starevich in the 1910s or Ptushko & co. at Mosfilm in the 1930s.

I think this is the worst "animated" (if you can call it that) Soviet film released in 1954. Interesting maybe for historical reasons (and Stepantsev's debut as director), and maybe to get a small hint of the vibe of everyday life at the time, but not much else. Slow, plodding, lacking in subtlety and heavy-handed. This is the film that actually conforms to every negative stereotype that the uninformed have about Soviet cinema. The other social satire in that year's almanac, The Signature is Illegible, is so much better.

I'm sure it's partly due to the technique (live-action puppets are limited in what you can do with them), but the other film in this technique released that year, At a Summer Villa, is also much more interesting.

>>1
Heh. Well, no, I think it's just an adult hare; they're all very little, so he looks huge. But he's only a little bigger than the mother (at 7:34).

Although this adaptation is competently done, has some excellent singing and is considered a classic, I must admit that I find it a bit drawn out and dry myself. It's just extremely straightforward. It's an adaptation of a famous Chukovsky poem, of course, but I like some of the illustrated book editions more (such as the one illustrated by Yevgeniy Antonenkov), as they feel more playful.

As for animation, I much prefer the film Ivanov-Vano directed the following year. And in 1954, too, although it was a bit of a "dry" year in general, there are others I like better. Including "The Frog Princess", "Niko and Nikora", "The Signature is Illegible", "In the Heart of the Forest".

Rescued by a hare the size of a wolf. ????