Russian Hobbit
Thank you to alek-morse for bringing this to my attention.
"The Treasure Under the Mountain" is a feature film that was never finished or released, based on Tolkien's "The Hobbit". Only the prologue survives. This video dates from about 1994, and was made by the company which is now called Argus International (list of films). It was Roman Mitrofanov's first directorial work. alek-morse speculated that maybe work was stopped because artists in Russia were just finding out about how copyright laws limited what they could make.
Translation/subtitles were made by myself.
Full text of song from the video:
Goodness and laughter, laughter and joy
Smiles light up the faces of all
and souls, like windows, are thrown wide open.
The sky up above shines clear and blue.
No-one wants to believe that bad dreams may come true,
nor know that some day
that some day the weather will worsen.
But the tempest arrived, as is always the case.
Disaster moves in to take merriment's place,
With fire and armor and no shred of mercy.
The desperate bell rings too late to assist,
And how will a mere paper dragon resist
a brave paper dragon
against one that's real?
When all is stretched thin by eternity's freeze,
When all is enveloped by blankets of time,
The Earth bit by bit becomes merged with the sky,
And night bit by bit becomes merged with the day.
But somebody here's left a track in the snow
which leads to a faraway
which leads to a faraway hope.
The rhymes aren't perfect, but I came closer than I thought I would while still keeping the translation accurate.
A more recent (and very different) film by Argus International is "My Life" (2000), which won the Annecy award for funniest film. It is directed by Natalya Beryozovaya. Here it is on Youtube with English subtitles which were added by someone other than myself:
"The Treasure Under the Mountain" is a feature film that was never finished or released, based on Tolkien's "The Hobbit". Only the prologue survives. This video dates from about 1994, and was made by the company which is now called Argus International (list of films). It was Roman Mitrofanov's first directorial work. alek-morse speculated that maybe work was stopped because artists in Russia were just finding out about how copyright laws limited what they could make.
Translation/subtitles were made by myself.
Click to viewFull text of song from the video:
Goodness and laughter, laughter and joy
Smiles light up the faces of all
and souls, like windows, are thrown wide open.
The sky up above shines clear and blue.
No-one wants to believe that bad dreams may come true,
nor know that some day
that some day the weather will worsen.
But the tempest arrived, as is always the case.
Disaster moves in to take merriment's place,
With fire and armor and no shred of mercy.
The desperate bell rings too late to assist,
And how will a mere paper dragon resist
a brave paper dragon
against one that's real?
When all is stretched thin by eternity's freeze,
When all is enveloped by blankets of time,
The Earth bit by bit becomes merged with the sky,
And night bit by bit becomes merged with the day.
But somebody here's left a track in the snow
which leads to a faraway
which leads to a faraway hope.
The rhymes aren't perfect, but I came closer than I thought I would while still keeping the translation accurate.
A more recent (and very different) film by Argus International is "My Life" (2000), which won the Annecy award for funniest film. It is directed by Natalya Beryozovaya. Here it is on Youtube with English subtitles which were added by someone other than myself: