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More than half a century after his death, Soviet filmmaker Aleksandr Rou remains a cinematic icon across Russia and other countries of the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. Dubbed ‘King of the Fairy Tales’ and ‘The Main Storyteller of the Country’, Rou revolutionized Soviet fantasy and fairy-tale cinema during a remarkable directorial career spanning from 1938 to 1972.
Deftly navigating the shifting ideological landscapes of the Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras, Rou created an idiosyncratic succession of weird, witty and wonderful films that celebrated and perpetuated the nation’s folkloric traditions while constantly refreshing them for new generations of appreciative young audiences. In English-speaking countries, by contrast, Rou’s films remain relatively little known. With streaming platforms now increasing their accessibility to western viewers, this book provides a timely introduction to his unique and exhilarating blend of mirth and magic.
'This book takes us on a journey through the fairy-tale films of Alexander Rou, one of the Soviet Union's most prolific and inventive filmmakers of the genre. Deborah Allison's always engaging and enjoyable writing provides the cultural and technical contexts as she reveals the features that make up Rou’s personal style, whilst also highlighting the narratives, actors and special effects in Rou's work. To put it in fairy-tale language: this is a beautifully woven carpet, whose intricate pattern emerges as we read and takes us on a flight into Rou’s fairy-tale world.'
–Birgit Beumers, Professor emerita in Film Studies, Aberystwyth University
'[The Films of Aleksandr Rou] does not just give us a detailed critical biography; it also implicitly argues for Rou’s significance as a director based on his ability to create aesthetically beautiful self-contained magical worlds and to innovate using trick shots and special effects. Moreover, in Western contexts, Soviet cinema has long been dominated by high-brow figures such as Sergei Eisenstein and Andrei Tarkovsky, leaving little room for directors whose work engaged with popular audiences. Such films are often dismissed as propaganda, whereas here Allison shows how Rou – like the arthouse directors mentioned above – was able to navigate the complexities of Soviet politics, ultimately creating a body of work that satisfied the state without feeling didactic to audiences.
The Films of Aleksandr Rou: Father of Soviet Fairy Tale Cinema makes a convincing case that the director should be regarded as a major figure in film history, and the book is also notable for combining scholarly rigour with Allison’s evident passion and personal admiration for Rou’s artistry.'
— John A. Riley, Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television
'[Allison] arranges her coverage of Rou’s work by political period and carefully shows how each group of films responded to the demands of the time. Thus, this book will be useful not only to those who wish to know more about this little known, but very important, filmmaker and his contribution to Soviet cinema, but also to those interested in politics and how they impacted the Soviet artistic world.'
— Natalie Kononenko, Studies in Russian and Soviet Cinema
'The Films of Aleksandr Rou arrives on the current and welcome surge in monographs on Soviet-era filmmakers who had never received dedicated attention in English... The book is primarily comprised of descriptions and interpretations of Rou’s films. Making close narrative and stylistic analysis exciting is a feat, which Allison accomplishes by addressing the most thrilling and novel aspects of the films. The Films of Aleksandr Rou is clearly a work of love, and Allison’s unabashed appreciation and passion for Rou’s films, which may at times seem campy and old-fashioned, is contagious. If the goal of the book was to entice the English-language readership not only to learn about Rou but to see his films, Allison accomplishes this goal most commendably.'
— Maria Belodubrovskaya, Slavic Review
Deborah Allison is a London-based cinema programmer and an associate research fellow at De Montfort University’s Cinema and Television History Research Institute. Her previous books include Film Title Sequences: A Critical Anthology (2021), The Cinema of Michael Winterbottom (2012) and the co-authored The Phoenix Picturehouse: 100 Years of Oxford Cinema Memories (2013).
Acknowledgements
Note on Translation and Transliteration
- Introduction: The Storyteller A Cinema for the Millions: The Pre-War Fairy Tales and Socialist Realism
The Magic Fish (1938)
Vasilisa the Beautiful (1939)
The Little Humpback Horse (1941)
- The War Years and ‘The Enemy’
Fighting Film-Collection No. 7 (1941)
Kashchei the Immortal (1945)
- The Film Famine and After: Exile from Fairyland
The Tale of Tsar Saltan (uncompleted)
The Documentaries: Artek (1949), A Day of Wonderful Impressions (1949) and in the Crimea (1950)
May Night (1952)
Secret of the Mountain Lake (1954)
A Precious Gift (1956)
- Fairy Tales, Folklore and Fantasy as Modern Texts in the Thaw
New Adventures of Puss in Boots (1958)
The Magic Weaver (1959)
Cinderella (1960)
The Night before Christmas (1961)
The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors (1963)
- Late-Career Fairy Tales: The ‘Storyteller’ Quartet
Jack Frost (1964)
Through Fire, Water and … Brass Pipes (1968)
Barbara the Fair with the Silken Hair (1969)
Golden Horns (1972)
Epilogue: Rou’s Legacy
A Posthumous Production: Finist – The Bright Falcon (1975)
The People’s Artist
Filmography
Bibliography