I imagine that in the Stalin era when this was made, taking a folk tale from time immemorial as a subject could function as a way to keep your film on theoretically nationalist ground while remaining apolitical. That seems to have done effectively enough here, where a fairly lavish production and budget are in evidence, with plenty of elaborate fantastical set-pieces and impressive location nature photography of such as waterfalls and attacking bears.
We're in the world of a old Slavic folk tale, which has a logic all its own and which is open to many interpretations from our vantage -- from pure Absurdism to scrupulous analog-heavy symbolism. The makers of this fortunately don't try to make the events "make sense" in a modern way, but take them at face value.
If we assume that one really can shoot an arrow in order to make it land at one's future bride and bring her post haste, the characters reactions to events will give them enough weight -- and when the arrow brings back a frog we can find it absurd along with them. So there's a generous amount of humor, which isn't always subtle but is always an amusing and welcome embellishment.
A film like this can appear very awkward and extremely strange to modern eyes, but it becomes more watchable if one embraces the strangeness. And it's commendable for doing what it does with a wink in its eye, somehow maintaining the balance between a what could easily have been a over-serious soul-extracted folk tale on one side, or a completely farcical burlesque of one on the other.
We're in the world of a old Slavic folk tale, which has a logic all its own and which is open to many interpretations from our vantage -- from pure Absurdism to scrupulous analog-heavy symbolism. The makers of this fortunately don't try to make the events "make sense" in a modern way, but take them at face value.
If we assume that one really can shoot an arrow in order to make it land at one's future bride and bring her post haste, the characters reactions to events will give them enough weight -- and when the arrow brings back a frog we can find it absurd along with them. So there's a generous amount of humor, which isn't always subtle but is always an amusing and welcome embellishment.
A film like this can appear very awkward and extremely strange to modern eyes, but it becomes more watchable if one embraces the strangeness. And it's commendable for doing what it does with a wink in its eye, somehow maintaining the balance between a what could easily have been a over-serious soul-extracted folk tale on one side, or a completely farcical burlesque of one on the other.