THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN (1967)
Russian director Aleksandr Ptushko's classic fantast film about love, magic, betrayal and abandoned family.
THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN (SKAZKA O TSARE SALTANE), 1967, Mosfilm, 85 min. Based on a famous fairy tale in verse by Alexander Pushkin, THE TALE OF TSAR SALTAN is one of director Aleksandr Ptushko's most sublime creations: a ravishingly beautiful fantasy about love, magic, betrayal and abandoned family. Driven from the Russian court by her sisters' scheming, the young Tsarina (Larisa Golubkina) is thrown into the sea in a cask with her infant son. Surviving the storm-tossed voyage, the mother and her now magically-adult son (Oleg Vidov) land on a remote island where he falls in love with a Swan Princess in human form (Kseniya Ryabinkina), and longs for reunion with his estranged father, Tsar Saltan (Vladimir Andreyev). Like his earlier masterpieces SAMPO and ILYA MUROMETS (also released by Deaf Crocodile), TSAR SALTAN is filled with breathtaking imagery: carved wooden lions who shed tears; peasants in pagan ritual masks, dancing in the snow; the treacherous faces of conspirators bathed in red candle glow like the witches in Macbeth. Ptushko's second-to-last feature, TSAR SALTAN has been gorgeously restored by Mosfilm and Deaf Crocodile for its first-ever release in the U.S., co-presented with Seagull Films. In Russian with English subtitles.
SPECIAL FEATURES
- New hour-long video interview with Academy Award winning Visual FX artist Robert Skotak (ALIENS, TERMINATOR 2) on Ptushko and the history of Russian fantastika filmmaking
- New commentary track by comics artist (Swamp Thing) and film historian Stephen R. Bissette.
- New essay by professor and film historian Peter Rollberg (Historical Dictionary of Russian and Soviet Cinema)
- Blu-ray authoring by David Mackenzie of Fidelity In Motion.
- New art by Tony Stella
