Priklyucheniya Toma Soyera i Geklberri Finna

It's ironic but true - although the Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn are an American classic of iconic status, it would be the old nemesis USSR to go down in history as the country of origin of their most faithful film adaptation. Almost all the story lines of the two books are told, and in a non-embellished fashion. While some may criticize its (lack of) pace, the careful storytelling makes this three hour TV-movie right especially for younger audiences. Precisely because this is not as high budget as some of the US versions, it is astonishing to watch how detailed the Mississippi towns were built in the Soviet Union (everything had to be built from scratch)! Try this one if you love the book and don't mind the harsh realism of the story.

This is Russian version of the famous Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn story filmed in 1981 by Odessa film studio starring Russian cinema's child star Fedja Stukov and others. I've seen many adaptions of the book on the screen but this one is the best by far. Not only the movie follows the book step by step, it's also very funny and entertaining. My whole family was laughing in tears! The movie is separated into 3 parts ( cuz it's pretty long, about 3h altogether)but it's length allows movie to be true to the book. I recommend this movie to everyone. It's fantastic retelling of Mark Twain book with wonderful roles from child actors!

What is so different about this film, what makes it such a great reflection of the book on screen - is that the director, it seems, did not aim to make a perfect comedy, or a perfect adventure film, or a perfect family film, and so he did not try to fit the story into some sort of industrial template to make it financially successful. In the USSR, movies usually weren't produced to make cash. Instead, what he did was pure art. He somehow managed to catch the atmosphere of a small American town on the bank of Missouri, the feeling of life there viewed through the eyes of a little boy. He certainly takes his time picturing it, but the result is very convincing and emotional. It does not impress you with dramatic action and effects. But it leaves a very warm aftertaste. And, yes, it does respect the original story. Sadly enough, poor preservation of Soviet film material and general situation with the cinema industry in modern Russia will hardly ever allow contemporary movie lovers to see it in good quality.

It really isn't fair to judge a 225 minute film from a butchered cut, but I was able to detect a delightful movie hidden behind incomprehensible cuts and muddy dubbing. I hope that someday the entire film is made available on DVD, and my rating is based not on the film I saw, but the film I imagine. It is hard to say exactly what makes this film so much better than the Hollywood versions of this famous tale. I suppose the most important thing is that the kids act like kids, not like movie stars trying to project "cute". Of course, it is nice that the story, or as much as we get to see of it, is true to the book. But a film is not designed, after all, to replace a book, but to be entertaining in its own right. Needless to say, this cut has preserved our morals by removing the skinny dipping, except for a one second scene that seems deliberately out of focus.