What is love? In one fairy-tale country a beautiful princess ruled peacefully. She handles her duties with her fairy godmothers. And all would have been well, but the princess grew up and on the day of her sixteenth birthday wondered what love is. It was this feeling for a beautiful street musician that she experienced in her dream. But even fairies could not explain to her what love was. And so the princess gathered all the young men of the country for a music competition to find her betrothed from a dream. But one of the fairies was angry and jealous, and she had her own plans for it all.
In 1978, for the New Year's Eve broadcast for Central Television, this musical fairy tale film was filmed. The director was Oleg Biyma. Such musical TV projects were often filmed for the holidays. Some of them became classics, like The Straw Hat or The Ordinary Miracle. Others, like "June 31" and "Mama," were shelved because of actors who had emigrated to the West. A similar fate awaited this film. The main star of the film Galina Loginova, the mother of Mila Jovovich, left in the 80s in the United States, which determined the fate of the film. Unfortunately, with the reconstruction, the picture did not return to the audience and is now little known to the modern public. After several TV shows in the late 80s, this musical tale was forgotten. Critics mention it now only in Loginova’s filmography and point to it as a weak Soviet musical film. Not received popularity and songs from the picture. They were rather weak, although they were written by famous composers.
When creating the tape, the authors did not particularly bother. The story is a remake of The Snow Queen. Costumes and images of fairies plagiarism "The Wizard of Oz" There are even seven Disney Dwarfs in the plot! But despite all these borrowings, the production itself is difficult to call a hack.
The script is verified, the musical numbers organically fit into the plot, the choreography is quite tolerable, the actors play at the level, the costumes are beautiful, the directing is good.
A separate word deserves casting. Actresses playing fairies are just the real embodiment of wizards. Galina Loginova stands out in a simply unreal for the USSR dress, chic large jewelry and with her mind-blowing figure. She sings, dances, plays well in the film. An incredibly talented mother of a talented daughter. The actress playing the princess is as young and tender as her character. I believe that such a person really experiences his first beautiful feeling.
It is a pity that this actress’s life was tragic. Andrey Gradov, who plays a betrothed princess, is now familiar to the audience mainly from the fresh Russian TV series. But judging by his early roles as in this film, I understand why for the viewer of the late USSR, he was an idol and a real sex symbol.
I really liked the guest appearances in the musical numbers of Hope Chepraga and the national VIA republics of the former USSR. To see and hear all this in a Gothic fairy tale was quite unexpected and pleasant. The future director of the famous TV series “Island of Love” already then with these small inclusions in the plot showed his style.
In general, despite the plagiarism, the fairy tale is high-quality, modern, beautifully and stylishly removed, not erased and will even now be interesting for both adults and children.
8 out of 10.