Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors

Infobox Film
name = Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors


image_size = 150px
caption = Soviet billboard theatrical poster of the film
Nushrok, Abazh and Anidag trio (top),
Olya and Yalo (bottom)
director = Aleksandr Rou
producer =
writer = Lev Arkadyev, Vitali Gubarev
narrator =
starring = Olga and Tatyana Yukina
Andrei Fajt,
Arkadi Tsinman,
Lidiya Vertinskaya
music = Arkady Filippenko
cinematography =
editing =
distributor = Gorky Film Studio
released = 1963
runtime = 75 min
country = flagicon|USSR USSR
language = Russian
budget =
gross =
preceded_by =
followed_by =
website =
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0145033

Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors ( _ru. Королевство Кривых Зеркал, translit. Korolevstvo krivykh zerkal) is a 1964 Soviet fairy tale film directed by Aleksandr Rou based on a story with the same name by Vitali Gubarev.

In the end of 2007 the TV Channel "Russia" filmed a musical remake - with the same name, featuring stars of Russian scene Nikolay Baskov and Alla Pugacheva. The original film contains introduction music and a fairytale style of the early 1960s. Although apropos for its time, it appears very odd and strange at this point in time, but, in a way, improves the experience.

Plot summary

Both the story by Gubarev, together with the 1964 film, written in a Through The Looking Glass style. Alice-type Soviet girl, named Olya (O. Yukina) meets her counterpart Yalo (T. Yukina), while looking into the mirror. Yalo is an absolute antipode to Olya, for example whre Olya is precise and neat, Yalo is absent-minded, careless, etc. The explicit plot relates to Olya learning to see herself differently, but this occurs through an experience in the Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors which serves as a mechanism for commenting on the ability of a society to manufacture a false reality (propaganda against capitalism?).

Two girls find themselves on an adventure to save Gurd (backward reading for "Drug", a friend), a boy was put in jail for refusing to make crooked mirrors. He is jailed by some evil forces in the kingdom, the trio "Anidag" (Gadina, meaning monster), "Nushrok" (Korshun, meaning vulture) and "Abazh" (Zhaba, meaning toad).

They meet "Aunt Askal" ("Laska" literally translates as the act of caring), King's Chef, who helped them on their journey by hiding them and dressing them up as two pages of the King Yagupop 77 (Popugay, meaning parrot). Meeting the king, reveals his stupidity, and later who is really in charge (referring to capitalism?). The King's stupidity may suggest that such a system should be easy to dupe, at least from the inside, as the girls do.

Despite, Olya's bumbling mistakes, Gurd is saved, and evil is defeated. Olya returns to her grandmother and Kingdom's mirrors are not crooked any more, implying that it is now a free society.

The film can be interpreted in numerous ways depending upon the viewers own history and the timing of viewing, which clearly illustrates that we all live in our own Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors.

Cast

* Olga Yukina as "Olya"
* Tatyana Yukina as "Yalo"
* Tatyana Barysheva as "Grandmother"
* Anatoli Kubatsky as "Jagupop 77"
* Andrei Fajt as "Nushrok"
* Lidiya Vertinskaya as "Anidag"
* Arkadi Tsinman as "Abag"
* Andrei Stapran as "Gurd"
* Ivan Kuznetsov
* Georgi Millyar
* Pavel Pavlenko as "Minister"
* Tamara Nosova as "Aunt Aksal"
* Vera Altajskaya as "Asirk"
* Aleksandr Khvylya
* Valentin Bryleyev

External links

* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145033/ Korolevstvo krivykh zerkal] at IMDB