Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors (1963)


This oddity of children's film fare from the former Soviet Union was written about in a past issue of the always excellent Shock Cinema and the high weirdness described in the review encouraged a viewing.

The movie opens with a persistently misbehaving young girl magically entering the Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors, accompanied by her own reflection, in an inter-dimensional battle against the bad guys. Loads of color and lavishly designed sets are a real highlight and impressive part of the production, often as trippy as the more lysergic Sid and Marty Krofft ideas. Filmed while the Cold War was red hot, even in this kiddie flick there is room to integrate condemnation for the stupidity of capitalism. For fans of bizarre cinema from around the globe - check it out!





4 comments:

  1. Aleksandr Rou is my favorite Russian director. This is definitely one of his most fun!

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  2. This movie is a trip, I'll have to check out some others from Mr. Rou - wild cinema indeed

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  3. Thanks for sharing this with us. I had never even heard of it before.

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  4. the genre of Soviet era films (especially children's flicks) is one I don't know much about Keith, but I bet there's some gold to be mined there

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