Master and Margarita /demo from Katariina Lillqvist on Vimeo.
I actually read The Master and Margarita sometime in the past few years. Would have a hard time summarizing the plot, but an interesting aspect of it was the presentation of the Devil as a somewhat sympathetic but in no way trustworthy actor.
This short animated film does have an eerie feeling of magic realism that suits the source material. Little things like the alarm clocks look great.
I actually read The Master and Margarita sometime in the past few years. Would have a hard time summarizing the plot, but an interesting aspect of it was the presentation of the Devil as a somewhat sympathetic but in no way trustworthy actor.
This short animated film does have an eerie feeling of magic realism that suits the source material. Little things like the alarm clocks look great.
2 comments:
I'd like to say I can remember reading The Master and Margarita but I can't. I did, however, check out the wikipedia description that made it sound pretty fascinating. That the novel couldn't be published in the Soviet Union says much about the harsh times there when Stalin was in charge. The little video you've posted looks like a valid treatment of the section where Margarita gains the power of a witch. It's spookily beautiful.
I've just finished re-reading Van Gulik's Judge Dee series. The interesting thing about those stories and what we know of modern day China is that Confucianism is still very much in evidence there as it was in the 7th century even though the government won't acknowledge the sage himself. Nevertheless, I couldn't help but draw the conclusion that Chinese Communism became the next in a long line of dynasties. A bit oversimplistic, perhaps, but I think it's a reasonable idea.
That would be an interesting thing to look at: What kind of books could be published under Stalin, what kinds of art could be shown, what music could be made, etc. Like, I know people have written about it, I just haven't looked at the details. I'm sure everyone must have been uneasy all the time.
I've been thinking about and looking into some things about China. For one thing why they never explored the Western Hemisphere. East Asia, of course, opens out onto the Pacific. You could get to Western America that way at least as easily as Europeans could through the Atlantic, and China was great at building boats. One Chinese woman explained it in terms of no need. They had all the raw materials they needed in their own sprawling country. Trade was what they were interested in, not raw materials and new land.
Oh, and yes, Van Gulik was brilliant.
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