Big Brother is looking at you Transparent Phone Case ¥25.9 Purchase
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="2">
I. Introduction</h1>
The post-80s generation born in the Soviet Union have almost all seen Bell's debut, a Soviet fantasy blockbuster.
It was none other than Christian Bell, who later made classic masterpieces such as Batman, Deadly Magic, and American Psycho. It's an adventure story that bridges the medieval world, with a bit of The Lord of the Rings, in which he plays the second male.
Before the official shooting, the crew was in time for the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the film crew was in Crimea, 900 kilometers away from the scene of the incident, and stopped filming for a month. In a 2008 interview, Bell recalled that before they ate, they had to use a Geiger counter to detect whether the tableware exceeded the radiation standard.
In order to make the film smoothly filmed, the then vice president of the International Atomic Energy Agency was also invited to Crimea to personally participate in the testing, so that the crew could work with peace of mind.
Today we will revisit this interesting Soviet-Swedish co-production fantasy film.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="121" > second, the background is laid</h1>
In 1986, the Soviet Union and Sweden decided to co-produce a film, and the Soviet producer was "Gorky Film Studio", the old producer of the Soviet classic film. In 1924, they produced the first Soviet science fiction film, Aelita: Queen of Mars. It can be seen that the producer is still very interested in the science fiction fantasy genre. In Sweden, Nordisk Tonefilm is responsible for supervising production.
The original film is a fairy tale published in 1954 by the famous Swedish picture book writer Astrid Lindgren< Mio, My Son>. Probably because the book was well received, she also received the Hans Christian Andersen Prize, the highest honor for picture book writers, in 1958. Many of her works have Chinese translations, and you may have read them as children.
The grandmother, who brought many beautiful and moving stories, died in 2002. In recognition of Lindgren's contribution to children's literature, the Swedish government has established the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Prize, which is awarded to living people or organizations around the world who have contributed to children's literature.
The most widely circulated name of the film is < Mio in the Land of Faraway >, and some international versions released by Swedish producers are named < Mio, my Mio mein Mio >. But on Douban, it has inexplicably become the > of < time-space warriors.
The general director of the shoot was the famous Soviet director, Vladimir Grammatikov/ Vladimir Grammatikov. He originally wanted to choose two suitable characters among the children in the Soviet Union, but according to the swedish producer's request, the main character of the film needed to be an English-speaking English-speaking Englishman, after all, according to the convention, the characters in the fantasy film had a standard British accent to be justified.
The Swedish producers then came to London and chose the right young actors. They found Nick Pickard and Bell (who were just 12 years old at the time) at the drama school (out of 300 candidates). Nick plays the main character, Mio, and Bell plays his loyal partner, Jum-Jum.
It is also worth mentioning that the person who plays the villain "Evil Knight" is the actor of the white-robed Saruman in "The Lord of the Rings", and the old British drama bone Christopher Lee/Christopher Lee.
Another must be mentioned is the creator of the film's theme song, two former members of the Swedish pop band ABBA (once one of the most popular in the world), Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus.
As well, derek Meddings, the film's special effects studio, was involved in the Superman and Batman films; artistic director Terry Ackland-Snow also produced James Cameron's Alien 2 during the same period.
In addition, the filming location also spans many countries, and has been filmed in Moscow, Crimea, Scotland, and Stockholm. Actors from the Soviet Union, Britain, Sweden and Norway were all involved. For example, the famous Castle of Eilean Donan in Scotland pictured above has been transformed into the home of the evil knights. Crimea's iconic Swallow's Nest/Swallow's Nest Castle also appeared.
The island kingdom in the movie is filmed in Crimea. Behind the scenes of green nature is the nuclear explosion cloud of Chernobyl, hundreds of kilometers away.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="122" >3. Synopsis</h1>
The film opens in modern Stockholm. The male protagonist Bosse's mother died, his father disappeared, and he grew up with his aunt and was ignored and bullied for many years. He only had one good friend, Benke. One night, Bosse went out looking for his father and met a grocery store lady who gave him an apple and asked him for help sending a letter. As soon as the letter was sent, the apple became gold. Frightened, Boss drops the Golden Apple to the ground and unleashes an elf from it.
The elf comes from a faraway land, and he asks bosses to pull on his beard, then soars through the wind and flies to Green Meadow Island (or interstellar travel that flies out of Earth). On the island, Bosse discovers that his real name is Mio, and that his missing father is the king of the island. Under the care and favor of the king, Mio lived happily, and he also had a thousand-mile horse Miramis as a gift from his father.
On the island, he meets a bunch of friends, one of whom is his best friend, Jum-Jum, the son of the royal garden director (played by Bell and the aforementioned Benke). The two of them followed the shepherd boy and learned to play the flute together.
From a message well, Mio learns that there is an evil knight with an iron hand who lives outside Green Meadow Island and his name is Kato. The evil knights would kidnap the children of the island and turn them into their slaves to work, and would change them into a heart made of stone. All children who refuse to serve the evil knights are cursed to become a bird, circling the castle forever.
With his partner, Jum-Jum, and Miramis, Mio is determined to go to the enclave to save the other children. As they passed through the mysterious forest, Mio's cloak was torn from the branches, so they went to the home of Aunt Textile, who entertained the two children and helped Mio mend the cloak.
Moving on, they met a hungry old man in the cave, after giving the old man food. The old man tells them that in order to defeat the evil knight, they must go to the forest of death outside Montenegro to find someone, and only the sword forged by this sword caster can pierce the heart of the evil Kato. So the little friend ventured through the cave to the Forest of Death and obtained the sword.
Eventually, just before arriving at the castle, the two were arrested. The sword also landed in the lake outside the castle. But Mio suddenly found that as long as he put the cloak in reverse, he could become invisible. So he sneaked out, got the sword with the help of the birds, and sneaked into Kato's room.
In a vicious fight, Mio kills the evil knight with his sword and then throws his heart out of the window. The heart of the stone turned into a bird and flew away.
At the same time, the other children changed back into human form and were freed. The trees in the Forest of Death came alive, and all the cursed people were liberated. Amid the joyful flutes of the two companions, they return to the king's side and the film ends.
<h1 class="pgc-h-center-line" data-track="123" >4</h1>
There are still many negative reviews about the film, especially from the Swedish side of professional critics and the public, who have made many criticisms of the film itself and the adapted fairy tales. From the current point of view, this film is only lacking a lot on the artistic level, such as poor acting skills, dialogue, unimaginative screenwriters, and clichéd fantasy fairy tale routines.
However, from the perspective of photography and costumes, it is indeed a solid work of "serious homework", and compared with the same type of production cost films in the late 1980s, the level of special effects of this film is still good.
Either way, it's a late Soviet fantasy movie worth remembering, even if it's forgotten by many and dusted off for too many years.
After filming the film, 12-year-old Christian Bell immediately participated in Spielberg's blockbuster < Empire of the Sun >, in which he played an important role, and his acting career has become more and more developed. In contrast, the male protagonist in the film, Nicholas Pickard, is still working hard in the British soap opera industry.
In the year of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, Bale made his first film, Maradona in Mexico with the "hand of God" to get Argentina to lift the World Cup. Later that year, Gorbachev and Ronald Reagan met in Iceland, which eventually led to the signing of the 1987 Intermediate-Range Missile Treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union.
Wonderful 1986, gone 1986.
Text: Wu Tatar
Source: rbth.com /wikipedia/imdb
Soviet hand-painted national emblem Transparent mobile phone case ¥25.9 Purchase