"Steklyannaya garmonika" or "The Glass Harmonica" is a 19-minute animated short film from the Soviet union from 1968 and if you know a bit about this country and what animated short films they were making approximately half a century ago, then you will find this an unusual watch. Usually these are family-oriented and include animals playing characters with human abilities and characteristics, but this one here does not only have no animals, it also has pretty heavy material which is unusual for Soviet animation from the 1960s. It is about a musician playing a glass harmonica and what happens to him when he comes to a town that is ruled by its very own rules. The director is Andrey Khrzhanovskiy and the writer is Gennady Shpalikov and for both this film is, almost 50 years later, among their most known and most successful works. I cannot really share the praise though. Different is not always good. The lack of talking here is nice because you don't need subtitles, but the characters' actions were not only fairly uninteresting, but made the film fairly difficult to understand. I got more from reading the plot synopsis than from watching these slightly under 20 minutes. Intertitles or dialogues may have helped a lot. Thumbs down from me. Not recommended.
Review of The Glass of Harmonica!
