| Last Year's Snow Was Falling | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Aleksandr Tatarskiy |
| Produced by | Aleksandr Tatarskiy |
| Written by | Sergey Ivanov |
| Starring | Stanislav Sadalskiy |
| Music by | Grigory Gladkov |
| Cinematography | Iosif Golomb |
| Editing by | Lyubov Georgieva |
| Distributed by | Studio Ekran |
| Release date(s) | 1983 |
| Running time | 19 min. 45 sec. |
| Country | Soviet Union |
| Language | Russian |
Last Year's Snow Was Falling (Russian: Падал прошлогодний снег; translit. Padal proshlogodniy sneg) is a 1983 Soviet clay-animated film directed by Aleksandr Tatarskiy (T/O Ekran studio).
The film reached a cult status after its first appearance on Central TV. The aphoristic remarks of the characters, full of absurd humor, turned into colloquial proverbs.
For this work Tatarskiy received the Silver Cooker award at the 1983 Varna International Film Festival.
Loosely based on some folk fairy tales.
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The protagonist is a lazy, ignorant but tricky man. He is also tongue-tied - unable to utter some digits and letters. He likes beer and always gets into ridiculous situations. Fortunately he has a strict and authoritative wife. The story begins when his wife sends him to bring a Christmas tree from the forest. But the forest in the Christmas is a magic place full of surprising events and transformations. Entangled in the miracles, having lost and found his own image more than once, the man go back home with empty hands.
The plot includes two interrelated stories - about man's dreams and about incredible transformations inside the magic cabin on chicken legs. The first story based on the fairy tale about greedy man who saw a rabbit in the forest, daydreamed about growing rich in it, and frightened it away.
The narrator closes the story by saying that the man eventually did get the tree, but it was already spring by that time, so he had to take it back.
The absurd style of narration raised censors' suspicions that the film "contains encoded messages to foreign intelligence". Also they said to Tatarskiy that he is disrespectful to the Russian man ("you have just one character in the film and he is an idiot").
Some phrases that later became colloquial (Who is here, for example, the last in line for the Tsar position? Nobody?! Then I'll be the First!) were defended by Tatarskiy and Ivanov with scandals. Despite their attempts the film was sent "for revision". It was cut anew and redubbed.
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