The Book of Masters
Encyclopedia
The Book of Masters is a Russian language
fantasy
film produced by the CIS division of the Disney company and directed by Vadim Sokolovsky. It was released in Russia on October 29, 2009. The story is based on Russian fairy tales. It is Disney's first film made in Russia.
, finds a magical stone
Alatyr while walking in a field. It transforms her heart into a stone and puts her under a queer curse. She is to be the evil Countess of Stones and live in a stone tower. If the greatest gem-cutter in the world brings the stone of Alatyr to life, though, she'll become the ruler of the world.
The Stone Countess, now cruel and selfish, is fascinated with the idea. She starts searching for the best gem-cutters and forces them to work with Alatyr, so the magical stone would become a living thing. Neither of the gem-cutters succeeds, so she kills them. While being imprisoned in her tower, they work on a large book about the secrets of gem-cutting. Each of them edits the book, so it's later named "the Book of Masters".
Meanwhile, the Countess creates a talking magic mirror
, whom she treats like a soulless thing. Also, she makes a large army of stone soldiers - the Ardars. She often sends them to terrorize common people and to capture some of them to feed Baba Yaga, who's mostly a cannibal.
The plot develops, picturing a young orphan Ivan, who lives in an ordinary village but dreams of becoming the world's best gem-cutter. His father had actually been kidnapped by the Stone Countess, and Ivan also secretly plans to avenge it.
One day, he makes a sculpture of his landlord
's daughter Clava, showing her fatness and ugliness in a grotesque
way. The landlord, who adores his daughter, orders to punish Ivan severely. The execution doesn't even start before the village faces another attack of the Ardars, who capture Ivan and Clava and bring them to Baba Yaga.
Baba Yaga goes to feed the Ardars, and Ivan and Clava are unexpectedly freed by a lovely young girl, who calls herself Katia, the Stone Countess's daughter. Clava takes the chance to run away from Baba Yaga's house, but Ivan is caught by Baba Yaga. She attempts to make a soup
of him but is distracted again by Iangul, the Ardars' commander, who comes again to see Katia. Baba Yaga disapproves of it, so she goes to send him away.
Katia hides Ivan and, when Iangul leaves and Baba Yaga goes to sleep, shows Ivan a passageway to the stone tower. One can enter it through a well if the Stone Countess allows. Ivan tells Katia of his dream to become a professional gem-cutter and avenge his father's death. So Katia gives him the Book of Masters to study but warns him about her mother's evil power.
Ivan studies the Book for a year. He has fallen for Katia and misses her terribly. But the fat landlady Clava wants to marry him, being sure that he's her rescuer. Moreover, the Stone Countess orders Katia to marry Iangul (who genuinely loves the girl). As for Ivan's ugly fiancee, she also has an admirer - Ivan's friend Cusma, a blacksmith
.
Finally, Ivan finishes studying the Book and goes to the stone tower. The Countess promises him Katia's hand in exchange for bringing Alatyr to life. Ivan believes her and soon carves the stone into a perfect shape of a red rose
, and it becomes alive.
But the Countess has tricked him. He sees Katia in a dream, and she tells him they'll never be together. Furious, Ivan runs to the forest where Baba Yaga lives to ask her for help. The Ardars are sent to kill him, but Cusma distracts them and they kill him instead.
Searching for Baba Yaga's house, Ivan meets a helpful talking horse
, frees a captured mermaid
and helps a bored bogatyr
. Finally he finds Baba Yaga, who tells him about magical diamond
s able to cancel Alatyr's black powers. Also she gives him a bottle with the water of life, and Ivan revives Cusma.
Then Baba Yaga's magic transport him to Koschei the Deathless, who is the owner of the magical diamonds. First Koschei refuses to give them to Ivan, but he is convinced to do this by his fiancee, the mermaid rescued by Ivan. So Ivan takes the diamonds and hurries to the tower, where Katia's soul is being given to Alatyr in order to make the stone fully alive.
Ivan saves Katia and steals Alatyr just in time, and they rush to the passageway to the non-magical world. They are stopped by Iangul, who still hopes that Katia will be his wife. Katia's sure Iangul is going to kill Ivan, so she offers herself in exchange for Ivan's life. Realizing that Katia doesn't love him, Iangul lets both of them run away. The Stone Countess turns him into a stone when she finds out.
But when the Countess catches Ivan and orders him to give her Alatyr back, Ivan is no longer afraid of her. He adorns Alatyr with the magical diamonds, and they break the spell that kept the Countess evil. So she's kind and sweet again and happily allows Katia to marry Ivan. The landlady Clava turns sad, because she wants to marry someone too. Her father says that he'll give her to anyone, and Cusma at last declares his love for Clava.
The two couples are wedded and live happily ever after.
Maxim Loktionov - Ivan
Irina Apeksimova
- the Stone Countess
Arthur Smolyaninov - Iangul
Valentin Gaft
- the magic mirror
Leonid Kuravlev - the landlord
Olga Yergina - Clava
Alexander Lenkov - the village's senior gem-cutter
Liya Akhedzhakova
- Baba Yaga
Nikolay Yefremov - Cusma
Mikhail Yefremov
- the bogatyr
Sergey Garmash - the talking horse
Yekaterina Vilkova - the mermaid
Gosha Kutsenko
- Koschei
Olga Aroseva
- the story-teller
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
fantasy
Fantasy
Fantasy is a genre of fiction that commonly uses magic and other supernatural phenomena as a primary element of plot, theme, or setting. Many works within the genre take place in imaginary worlds where magic is common...
film produced by the CIS division of the Disney company and directed by Vadim Sokolovsky. It was released in Russia on October 29, 2009. The story is based on Russian fairy tales. It is Disney's first film made in Russia.
Plot
A beautiful and kind girl, daughter of Baba YagaBaba Yaga
Baba Yaga or Baba Roga is a haggish or witchlike character in Slavic folklore. She flies around on a giant pestle, kidnaps small children, and lives in a hut that stands on chicken legs...
, finds a magical stone
STONe
is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Sin-Ichi Hiromoto. Kodansha released the two bound volumes of the manga on April 23, 2002 and August 23, 2002, respectively.The manga is licensed for an English-languague released in North America be Tokyopop...
Alatyr while walking in a field. It transforms her heart into a stone and puts her under a queer curse. She is to be the evil Countess of Stones and live in a stone tower. If the greatest gem-cutter in the world brings the stone of Alatyr to life, though, she'll become the ruler of the world.
The Stone Countess, now cruel and selfish, is fascinated with the idea. She starts searching for the best gem-cutters and forces them to work with Alatyr, so the magical stone would become a living thing. Neither of the gem-cutters succeeds, so she kills them. While being imprisoned in her tower, they work on a large book about the secrets of gem-cutting. Each of them edits the book, so it's later named "the Book of Masters".
Meanwhile, the Countess creates a talking magic mirror
Magic Mirror
Magic Mirror is a lithograph print by the Dutch artist M. C. Escher which was first printed in January, 1946.It depicts a mirror standing vertically on wooden supports on a tiled surface. The perspective is looking down at an angle at the right hand side of the mirror. There is a sphere at each...
, whom she treats like a soulless thing. Also, she makes a large army of stone soldiers - the Ardars. She often sends them to terrorize common people and to capture some of them to feed Baba Yaga, who's mostly a cannibal.
The plot develops, picturing a young orphan Ivan, who lives in an ordinary village but dreams of becoming the world's best gem-cutter. His father had actually been kidnapped by the Stone Countess, and Ivan also secretly plans to avenge it.
One day, he makes a sculpture of his landlord
Landlord
A landlord is the owner of a house, apartment, condominium, or real estate which is rented or leased to an individual or business, who is called a tenant . When a juristic person is in this position, the term landlord is used. Other terms include lessor and owner...
's daughter Clava, showing her fatness and ugliness in a grotesque
Grotesque
The word grotesque comes from the same Latin root as "Grotto", meaning a small cave or hollow. The original meaning was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century...
way. The landlord, who adores his daughter, orders to punish Ivan severely. The execution doesn't even start before the village faces another attack of the Ardars, who capture Ivan and Clava and bring them to Baba Yaga.
Baba Yaga goes to feed the Ardars, and Ivan and Clava are unexpectedly freed by a lovely young girl, who calls herself Katia, the Stone Countess's daughter. Clava takes the chance to run away from Baba Yaga's house, but Ivan is caught by Baba Yaga. She attempts to make a soup
Soup
Soup is a generally warm food that is made by combining ingredients such as meat and vegetables with stock, juice, water, or another liquid. Hot soups are additionally characterized by boiling solid ingredients in liquids in a pot until the flavors are extracted, forming a broth.Traditionally,...
of him but is distracted again by Iangul, the Ardars' commander, who comes again to see Katia. Baba Yaga disapproves of it, so she goes to send him away.
Katia hides Ivan and, when Iangul leaves and Baba Yaga goes to sleep, shows Ivan a passageway to the stone tower. One can enter it through a well if the Stone Countess allows. Ivan tells Katia of his dream to become a professional gem-cutter and avenge his father's death. So Katia gives him the Book of Masters to study but warns him about her mother's evil power.
Ivan studies the Book for a year. He has fallen for Katia and misses her terribly. But the fat landlady Clava wants to marry him, being sure that he's her rescuer. Moreover, the Stone Countess orders Katia to marry Iangul (who genuinely loves the girl). As for Ivan's ugly fiancee, she also has an admirer - Ivan's friend Cusma, a blacksmith
Blacksmith
A blacksmith is a person who creates objects from wrought iron or steel by forging the metal; that is, by using tools to hammer, bend, and cut...
.
Finally, Ivan finishes studying the Book and goes to the stone tower. The Countess promises him Katia's hand in exchange for bringing Alatyr to life. Ivan believes her and soon carves the stone into a perfect shape of a red rose
Rose
A rose is a woody perennial of the genus Rosa, within the family Rosaceae. There are over 100 species. They form a group of erect shrubs, and climbing or trailing plants, with stems that are often armed with sharp prickles. Flowers are large and showy, in colours ranging from white through yellows...
, and it becomes alive.
But the Countess has tricked him. He sees Katia in a dream, and she tells him they'll never be together. Furious, Ivan runs to the forest where Baba Yaga lives to ask her for help. The Ardars are sent to kill him, but Cusma distracts them and they kill him instead.
Searching for Baba Yaga's house, Ivan meets a helpful talking horse
Horse
The horse is one of two extant subspecies of Equus ferus, or the wild horse. It is a single-hooved mammal belonging to the taxonomic family Equidae. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million years from a small multi-toed creature into the large, single-toed animal of today...
, frees a captured mermaid
Mermaid
A mermaid is a mythological aquatic creature with a female human head, arms, and torso and the tail of a fish. A male version of a mermaid is known as a "merman" and in general both males and females are known as "merfolk"...
and helps a bored bogatyr
Bogatyr
The bogatyr was a medieval heroic warrior of Kievan Rus' and the Novgorodian Republic, akin to a Western European knight errant.- Kievan Rus' :...
. Finally he finds Baba Yaga, who tells him about magical diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
s able to cancel Alatyr's black powers. Also she gives him a bottle with the water of life, and Ivan revives Cusma.
Then Baba Yaga's magic transport him to Koschei the Deathless, who is the owner of the magical diamonds. First Koschei refuses to give them to Ivan, but he is convinced to do this by his fiancee, the mermaid rescued by Ivan. So Ivan takes the diamonds and hurries to the tower, where Katia's soul is being given to Alatyr in order to make the stone fully alive.
Ivan saves Katia and steals Alatyr just in time, and they rush to the passageway to the non-magical world. They are stopped by Iangul, who still hopes that Katia will be his wife. Katia's sure Iangul is going to kill Ivan, so she offers herself in exchange for Ivan's life. Realizing that Katia doesn't love him, Iangul lets both of them run away. The Stone Countess turns him into a stone when she finds out.
But when the Countess catches Ivan and orders him to give her Alatyr back, Ivan is no longer afraid of her. He adorns Alatyr with the magical diamonds, and they break the spell that kept the Countess evil. So she's kind and sweet again and happily allows Katia to marry Ivan. The landlady Clava turns sad, because she wants to marry someone too. Her father says that he'll give her to anyone, and Cusma at last declares his love for Clava.
The two couples are wedded and live happily ever after.
Cast
Maria Andreeva - KatiaMaxim Loktionov - Ivan
Irina Apeksimova
Irina Apeksimova
Irina Apeksimova is a Russian stage and screen actress.Apeksimova was the child of classical musicians, Victor Nikolaevich Apeksimova and Svetlana Yakivna Apeksimova...
- the Stone Countess
Arthur Smolyaninov - Iangul
Valentin Gaft
Valentin Gaft
Valentin Yosifovich Gaft is a Russian and Soviet actor, People's Artist of Russia .-Biography:Valentin Gaft was born in Moscow to a family of a lawyer Iosif Romanovich Gaft and Gita Davydovna Gaft . The family moved to Moscow from Poltava, Ukraine...
- the magic mirror
Leonid Kuravlev - the landlord
Olga Yergina - Clava
Alexander Lenkov - the village's senior gem-cutter
Liya Akhedzhakova
Liya Akhedzhakova
Liya Medzhidovna Akhedzhakova is a Soviet and Russian actress who is famous both for theater and cinema.-Biography:Akhedzhakova was born in Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine. She grew up in a theatrical family in Maykop. Her Father Majid Salehovich Ahedzhakov was the principal director and her mother an...
- Baba Yaga
Nikolay Yefremov - Cusma
Mikhail Yefremov
Mikhail Olegovich Yefremov
Mikhail Olegovich Yefremov is a Russian film and stage actor, Meritorious Artist of Russian Federation ....
- the bogatyr
Sergey Garmash - the talking horse
Yekaterina Vilkova - the mermaid
Gosha Kutsenko
Gosha Kutsenko
Yuriy Georgiyevich Kutsenko , better known as Gosha Kutsenko is a Russian actor, producer, singer, poet, and screenwriter. In 2008 he joined the United Russia party. Kutsenko has appeared in high profile films such as Mama Don't Cry, Antikiller, Night Watch, and Echelon...
- Koschei
Olga Aroseva
Olga Aroseva
-External links:...
- the story-teller
Criticism
The critics have different opinions of the film. Most judge it for modernizing Russian old folklore, but some episodes of the script are considered well-done. Also the critical reviews praise several actors for their performance. These actors are mostly the ones who played secondary characters - Arthur Smolyaninov as Iangul, Valentin Gaft as the mirror, Sergey Garmash as the talking horse etc.External links
- The Book of Masters at Yahoo! Movies
- Home of the Mouse Finds Box Office Success in the Land of the Bear, NY Times article.