Russian fairy tale kid movie weirdness in the grand tradition! The holiday themed MASHA AND VITYA’S NEW YEAR’S ADVENTURES (NOVOGODNIE PRIKLYUCHENIYA MASHI I VITI; 1975) was made for television, meaning the budget was sparser than those of most big screen Soviet fantasy films. The culturally specific weirdness is at least quite potent, but the film overall is not one of the better entries in this particular category.
The bespectacled nerd Vitya and his friend Masha meet Santa Claus one Christmas. Santa reveals that he wanted to arrange a New Year’s celebration for his daughter the Snow Maiden, but she’s been imprisoned within an alternate universe by the demonic Kaschei the Infinite. Determined to rescue the Snow Maiden, the kids enter the braches of a Christmas tree, which deposits them in an enchanted fore.
There Masha and Vita happen upon a rotating hut inhabited by the evil witch Baba Yaga. They escape her clutches by attaching a fuse to a pot and blasting themselves into the air, only to land near a stove, in which resides the soul of a woman imprisoned by Baba. Masha and Vita free the soul and happen upon another spectral woman, this one residing in a peach orchid.
Next they’re confronted with a cat-man, who they distract with a wind-up mouse, and a bird-man stuck on a tree branch. They free the bird-man and he shows them the way to Kaschei’s castle. It turns out to be a creepy place, and its owner a creepy individual, who together with Baba Yaga and the other creatures attempts to put a permanent end to Masha and Vita.
This film is bizarre in a way that only a 1970s Russian children’s film could possibly be, with ultra-primitive special effects that in their thudding earnestness—captured via cinematography that is, conversely, superbly wrought, with a gorgeous Mario Bava-esque lighting scheme—only add to the unintentional surreality of the enterprise.
Narratively the whole thing is a little too self-consciously WIZARD OF OZ like in its construction, while the tone is too jokey for its own good, the scenery is cheap-looking and the wardrobes blatantly costumey. Obnoxious song numbers pack the film (none more so than the concluding kiddie dance-a-thon), although I quite liked the eclectic score that alternates cartoony kid movie schmaltz with acid rock riffs.
Ultimately this is very much a holiday movie, a point that is constantly driven home in an obvious and overwrought manner. And just in case we don’t fully understand, there’s a final montage of all the film’s actors wishing us a Happy New Year.
Vital Statistics
MASHA AND VITYA’S NEW YEAR’S ADVENTURES (NOVOGODNIE PRIKLYUCHENIYA MASHI I VITI; 1974)
Odesskaya Kinostudiya
Director: Mikhaiul Ptashuk
Screenplay: Anatoliy Usov
Cinematography: Yuriy Klimenko
Editing: V. Oleynik
Cast: Sergei Svetlitsky, Oksana Bobrovich, Ivan Mykolaichuk, Aleksandr Abdulov, Radzh Razzakov, Gia Pipiya, Galina Sulima, Stanislav Franio, Zhenya Bliznyuk, Edik Orlov, Lena Kostyreva, Ira Kalinicheva