Now available on Blu-ray.
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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 Blu-ray release in the U.S., co-presented with Seagull Films. In Russian with English subtitles.