NOVYY GULLIVER (The New Gulliver, 1936) **1/2 Aleksandr Ptushko and A. Vanichkin pull everything out of their bag of tricks (Hollyvood's got nozzing on oss!): cool puppets, stop motion animation, and real live (alleged) actors, frequently all in the same frame. Being a Soviet flick of the era, it's also inevitable that young Gulliver's going to somehow overthrow the evil king, in the service of the workers. So either kick back and enjoy it, or don't show up. Most of the propaganda is of a laughably least common denominator variety (like Bush's foreign policy speeches), but the Soviets do appear to have some particular insight into the manner in which legislatures (don't) work. The portrayal of the effete monarch is very, very funny, and no doubt drawn from their own recent history. The most glorious, and perplexing, aspect of the film is the song honouring the king. Could the Soviets have been aware of Madame Jenkins-or foreseen her-or was it just dumb luck borne of an unshakable belief in the decadence of the entire operatic genre? The "good" workers are telling: in direct contradiction to Marx himself, but in accordance with the worst of what went on in the East, they're all absolutely colourless automaton clones of each other. Well, the leader has a beard, but other than that they look like partially completed plastic army men. Conformity is good. Nyet. It's not difficult to see how America won the culture wars. K. Konstantinov is about as bad a child actor as you'll ever see in a leading role, pompous, obviously brainwashed to the point of derangement, a kind of off-advertisement for an indoctrination process with the ultimate effect of prozac. He's the worst one in the film, though, admittedly, with the puppets well in the lead. I think I like the flying ones best.
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