Customer Reviews

Stories From My Childhood, Vol. 4: Beauty & the Beast

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Lev Atamanov's "Beauty and the Beast" (also known as "The Pink Flower") is the most beautiful of all Russian animated films, though buyer beware...The Jove transfer betrays a significant loss in quality compared with the recent Krupny Plan restoration (unfortunately, not available in region one). Exquisite moments abound (e.g. reflections in a pool capture the flight of swans overhead) but such fine details, more often than not, come across as an unlovely blur; elaborate 3-dimensional effects, notably, in the beast's magical domain, are rendered flat and lifeless here. And while Jove's intentions are laudable, in attempting to bring this classic to a wider audience, in fact, a true work of art has been poorly served. The disc does offer compensations, however, with handsome reproductions of Stepantsev's "The Nutcracker" and two tales by Pushkin.
In general, Jove's "Stories from my Childhood" are a mixed blessing. Some offerings - "12 Months," "Cinderella," "The Snow Girl" - dubbed, re-scored and vibrantly transferred, compare favorably with the Russian originals. Others, such as "The Snow Queen" and "Alice and the Mystery of the Third Planet" do not. Tsekhanovsky's "Wild Swans," perhaps, deserves a more considered appraisal. The image "pops" nicely, though it lacks the proper wide-screen ratio. More damagingly, the magnificent original score by Alexander Varlamov, has been replaced with an inappropriately generic synth-pop arrangement. And, the film's most enchanting sequence (a flight to the island during a thunderstorm) has been ruined with middling cuts and distracting voice-overs.
Still recommended - Jove's "Masters of Russian Animation" series (volumes 1-4) and "Soviet Animated Propaganda" - a collection, which despite it's technical imperfections, is well worth seeking out.

This is the Russian take on Beauty and the Beast, remarkably beautiful animation, similar to the classical Disney style, like Bambi and Pinocchio. The music is very well-matched to the visuals. My 5-year-old loved the film and watched it 3 times since we bought it. His only complaint is that the Beast isn't scarry enough. But everything else is just magical.

Excellent translation. Brings back my childhood memories and I can share them with my grand-children as they can watch it in English. They love it too!

this is rotoscope animation( beauty and the beast ). it's good enough . so far . i don't know why the artist draw the face not pretty ...and i hoped they clean up the old dust movie , All the rest of other short movies is very good and pretty hand draw....