Ah, now this is nostalgic. The feeling I get from this one is very uniquely of that era; also, I can't imagine this kind of melancholy, but sweet and sincere cartoon about friendship, loss and sacrifice ever being made in the West. The ending is wonderful in how it doesn't force upon the viewer any interpretation that they're not ready for.

I like the story and the film.

But I am annoyed by the art style in Amalrik's post-1950s films (including this one) where everyone's legs (including those of birds) are human-shaped. Birds' "knees" should bend the other way!

I much prefer Karayev's later films from the 1980s, but this clearly does what it was commissioned to do (warn about the dangers of not following the rules of the road and drinking), while being fun to watch. Public opinion (e.g. from here) seems quite positive.

At 1:48, the TV is playing "Это вы можете" (You Can Do This), a show about how things were made that ran from 1973-1993. A few episodes can be found here.

Armenian director Robert Sahakyants adapted a very similar tale fifteen years earlier: Who Will Tell a Fable? (1982)

I found the title of this film rather difficult to translate. Perhaps there's a better solution. Eus's suggestion was the literal "What in the world doesn't happen!" but that Russian expression doesn't have the same meaning in English (also, it's not just "happen" but also "exist").

I think this movie is exceptionally well-structured and it's one of my favourite Russian animated features. Despite the rather bland short live-action intro at the beginning. It also has interesting characters - even the "villains" are often shown to have redeeming features. It is told from the perspective of an old-school Indo-European culture, and assumes social mores that to modern sensibilities seem really alien.

In some places, the English title is given as "The Magic Reed-Pipe". However, there is clearly no reed on the instrument. It seems to be a fipple flute. I considered "The Magic Flute" but I think the confusion with the famous work by Mozart would be too much.

I did some work to fix the sound synchronization issues (see notes in the English subtitles description).

I hope we get a proper release of this film one day, without with strange luma ghosting artifacts in the video, and with well-synced, stereo audio (it was released with only one working audio channel on DVD).

An often-beautiful Russian stop motion-animated feature film based on Andersen's fairy tale using the music of Tchaikovsky (and a heavy dose of "chipped-shoulder Russian intelligentsia" subtext, if one chooses to notice it).

I originally made the English subtitles back in 2010, but they were only shown in one place as far as I know. I think translation-wise it's some of my better work. This film mostly consists of songs, and I managed to translate them entirely in the same rhyming meter while keeping the meaning very close to the original words. Even if "official" subtitles turn up somewhere else, this is probably better.

Opinions about this film among Russian viewers (at least judging by the comments on RuTracker) seem to be extremely polarized with very little middle ground or respect of those with the opposite view. As one person summed it up, if you don't like the film you are apparently "idiotic cattle", and if you like it you are a "member of the intelligentsia prone to sentimentality and a love of vengeance". Of those with children, most mentioned that their children liked it even if they themselves were more ambivalent. As for myself (leaving aside questions of art design and animation quality, which are great throughout), I think it has both some really wonderful parts (especially closer to the end) as well as some questionable ones. There is a bit too much repetitiveness in the middle. I do definitely think that the director was or is bitter at the society he lives in and that this made its way into the film, but in some places the film really rises above that and in others it doesn't. Where it doesn't is where I think viewer perceptions seem to become polarized... which may be why a number of commentators have written that this film is like a mirror.

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>I appreciate you linking the translated fable
Sure, I always try to link to the literary source and its translation if I can find them.

I really love this film - it has been one of my favourites from the studio for years. But it wasn't online for the longest time. The use of light and depth is wonderful, and I recognize much of what it shows as happy (or not so happy) childhood memories. Probably it's not so much a children's film, though it's from the perspective of a child. Also, it doesn't seem to have an especially happy ending... actually, it seems downright tragic, although I couldn't find anybody anywhere discussing it. My interpretation is that it suddenly jumps forward a decade or two, to a decidedly less happy time - and the whole preceding film is perhaps the young lad's last, favourite memory.

It's a shame that the director made no other films. But some others it reminds me of are:

The Lodgers of an Old House (1988)
Forest Tales (1997)
There Lived a Tree (1996)

I appreciate you linking the translated fable

The main part of this film has no dialogue - probably to help with "international appeal". But even though I found it possible to follow the story if I watched carefully, even though I was unfamiliar with the world, it did take a major effort... and I think the film would have been stronger and more popular with viewers if characters were allowed to talk in the normal way.