On the 27th of March 2021 a long-lost Russian film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings was
uploaded to YouTube, and because apparently I don’t have anything better to do, I watched
the whole thing. You might have watched a few clips here and there, but trust me – if
you haven’t watched all of it, you do not understand how truly weird this movie is.
[gargling]
If you think that’s weird, just wait until I show you Sauron and the giant eagle.
Anyway, the whole thing is almost two hours long and you’re not going to watch that,
so as a public service to film Youtube, I’ve done a deep dive on this crazy, forgotten
piece of film history. Like the Lord of the Rings itself, this video is presented in three
parts.
The part one looks at the historical context in which this film was made. Part two is my
overarching comments on the film itself. Part three is the best one because it’s just
me showing you all of the crazy moments in the film.
Now, before we begin I should emphasise that this isn’t a review. This film is truly
unlike anything I have ever watched before, so I can’t really pass a value judgement
on whether it’s good or not. I’m actually reminded of Robert Ebert’s zero star review
of the Human Centipede:
I am required to award stars to movies I review. This time, I refuse to do it. The star rating
system is unsuited to this film. Is the movie good? Is it bad? Does it matter? It is what
it is and occupies a world where the stars don't shine.
The Russian Lord of the Rings adaptation is, in every sense of the word, from another time.
It could be from another universe. So if you’re wondering whether it’s good or bad, you’re
asking the wrong question. It is what it is.
So let’s put this film in context. Russian translations of The Lord of the Rings books
didn’t officially exist for much of the Soviet Union. The earliest attempts were heavily
censored, and mostly published without Tolkien’s approval.
See, Tolkien was very particular about how his work was translated. As a linguist, he
put a huge amount of care and thought into every single name. He didn’t just make them
up.
For example Theoden comes from the Anglo-Saxon word eoden meaning "lord" which in turn is
also related to an Old Norse word meaning “leader of the people.” Eomer’s name
is a hybrid of the Anglo Saxon words eoh – meaning war horse – and maer – meaning famous.
Other names like Aragorn are based on Tolkien’s fictional languages like Sindarin. In his
mythology, the Lord of the Rings books are presented as translations of the Red Book
of Westmarch from Westeron into modern English, and many of the names within it are themselves
translations from Middle Earth languages like Sindarin into English.
This is why it took him like 18 years to write the thing.
What all this means though is that he wasn’t happy with foreign translators simply changing
names to whatever they wanted. In Russia, the issue was not so much with
translations as censorship by the Soviet Union. The first Russian edition of the Lord of the
Rings was published in 1966, but it was heavily abridged to remove all of those pesky anti-totalitarianism
themes.
In 1982, an abridged translation of The Fellowship of the Ring was published in Russian. This
was essentially the only officially sanctioned translation of the Lord of the Rings available
in Russian until the fall of the Soviet Union, though a translation of the Hobbit was officially
published in 1976.
Which brings us to the film adaptation.
The title of this film is Khraniteli – which means “Keepers” or “Guardians,” depending
on the translation. It tells the story of the Fellowship of the Ring novel, was directed
by Natalya Serebrynakova, and it aired just once on 13 April 1991 on Leningrad TV. The
reason it only aired once was probably because, a few months later, the Soviet Union sort
of…well…
Leningrad TV eventually became Channel Five. They’re in the process of digitising their
80-year old archive, and during this process they found the old reels for Khraniteli, which,
until then, was considered to be lost. According to the channel, digitising this production
was ‘a long and painstaking process’ and ‘a tremendous amount of work as done to
restore and improve the image quality.’
And you can really see this!
What makes Khraniteli interesting is the fact that it wasn’t the first live-action adaptation
of Tolkien produced in the Soviet Union. In 1985, Leningrad TV produced *clears throat*
The Fabulous Journey of Mr. Bilbo Baggins, The Hobbit, Across the Wild Land, Through
the Dark Forest, Beyond the Misty Mountains. There and Back Again.
It’s got a similar aesthetic and budget to Khraniteli, though the productions appear
unrelated to each other – for example Gandalf looks way cooler in the Hobbit. Khraniteli
Gandalf looks like Rasputin.
Both the Hobbit and Khraniteli are considered ‘television plays,’ and for the most part,
Khraniteli very much looks and feels like a filmed stage show. The costumes are clearly
leftovers from an old production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the sets are confined, and
much of the acting is clearly theatrical, rather than cinematic.
But Khraniteli compliments the theatre sets with very rudimentary green screens for some
of the more exotic locations like Moria, and intercuts scenes with some location filming.
The film also uses what Channel Five itself calls “attempts at special effect.”
We’ll look at those in part three.
So basically, if you’ve ever watched a classic episode of Doctor Who, you’ll know what
to expect from Khraniteli. Don’t believe me? Well, this isn’t a clip from a classic
episode of Doctor Who – that’s Soviet Saruman.
Now, in a minute I’m going to go through all of the weird and wonderful moments in
the film, but before I do that, I want to make a few general observations.
The first is that this is actually a pretty faithful adaptation of the Fellowship of the
Ring. The major plot developments track pretty closely to those, at least in book one – once
they leave Rivendell things go off the rails a bit. The dialogue often matches the novel
– though this could just be some creative liberty on the part of whoever did the YouTube
subtitles.
But what surprised me was how faithful a lot of the characters were to the novel – particularly
Gandalf, Aragorn, Boromir and Sam. Each of these actors, and the way they portrayed the
characters, were immediately recognisable and believable in those roles. Also the fact
that Pippin is always eating was quite a nice touch.
Unfortunately this wasn’t universal. Frodo in particular was quite inconsistent – going
back and forth between being a happy-go-lucky kid, and other times doing things like trying
to intimidate Aragorn.
Another thing that struck me was the fact that the filmmakers clearly put some thought
into making this accurate to the book – but were fantastically selective about it. For
example, the hobbits all have furry feet like in the books – but the hairy feet go right
up to their knees and make them look like weird Wookie hybrids.
Then the hobbits are all the same height as the human characters, so if you’re going
to focus on details like the feet in order to be faithful to the book, why would you
ignore their other most defining characteristic?
And before you write a comment about this scene with Tom Bombadil that you saw in every
article written about this movie – this is the only time they use forced perspective,
and in the dialogue the hobbits refer to him as a ‘giant’ – implying that in fact
Bombadil is abnormally large, not the hobbits being small.
The film also frequently uses this weird, fake form of soft focus. It’s hard to tell
if this is a result of the digital restoration process or part of the original film but the
end result is that it looks like someone smeared Vaseline over the lens – which to be honest
they may well have done.
Also, I understand why the special effects are bad, but every time someone puts on the
Ring and disappears, they do so offscreen like this.
Having things disappear is one of the oldest and most straightforward visual effects you
can do on film, so why did they never do it?
There are so many really weird filmmaking decisions in this movie. Like, in almost every
scene, the camera pans off, zooms into a candle and fades out. Now this is pretty universal
cinematic language for a scene change. But most often, it just randomly happens in the
middle of a scene, and we return to the scene as if nothing happened.
Similar to this problem is the narrator. This guy baffles me so much. He starts off narrating
the film and delivering some exposition. But after about ten minutes, we barely hear from
him again. Now that would be fine, except for the fact that we continually cut back
to him doing nothing except stare at the camera for a few seconds. So why is he even there
in the first place?
Finally, the music. The score was written by a Russian band called Akvarium especially
for the film, and it is just so at odds with what is on screen that it deserves its own
special mention. The film opens with a musical version of the poem about the rings of power.
If the music itself wasn’t enough, it’s set to footage of the hobbits and the ringwraiths
milling about in the snow. There’s no narrative here – it just feels like those copyright-free
music videos they have in karaoke bars.
Some of the music is appropriate – like the hobbit theme.
But the they just seemingly play it whenever they’re on screen, even if they’re running
from the ringwraiths.
Seriously, when I watch this all I can see is this:
[hobbit theme]
But my favourite song is the ringwraith theme.
I just love the idea of the ringwraiths charging around Middle Earth blasting this weird 80’s
synth rock music like they’re in Bladerunner or something. It’s just so jarring every
time it comes on, and I love it.
Oh yeah, before I forget – there’s also…this:
[chanting]
This happens a lot.
But enough of this. You came here to see just how weird this movie is. So let’s go through
some of the highlights of the second weirdest Tolkien adaptation ever put to live action.
What’s the weirdest? Why, it’s Mr Spock singing about Bilbo Baggins, of course.
And everybody knows him Bilbo! Bilbo! Bilbo Baggins.
So, in the order they appear, I present to you my personal list of highlights from Khraniteli,
better known as the Russian Lord of the Rings.
The fact that Lobelia Sackville-Baggins not only appears in the film as a named character,
but has more lines and screentime than Legolas and Gimli combined.
Gandalf turning up at Bilbo’s party wearing an outfit that looks like it once belonged
to Noel Fielding.
The film showing us Gandalf’s fireworks by…lifting his cloak, then cutting to a
static drawing of stars with some sound effects.
Frodo casually whittling while asking Gandalf about Mordor.
The fact that Mordor looks like this.
The fact that the orcs look like this.
When we have the flashback to Smeagol and Deagol, there’s this hilarious shot of Deagol
swimming, followed by him climbing out of the river completely dry.
Deagol’s hairdo.
Smeagol turning into Gollum.
Why is he gargling? Make it stop!
Gandalf interrogating Gollum like a Russian gangster.
The fact that they could only afford three horses, so to depict the nine wraiths, they
just play back to back shots of the same three horses riding past the camera.
Gandalf saying “winter is coming” in Russian.
The hobbits on the road dressed in colour coordinated cloaks like they’re the Power
Rangers.
The weird dream sequence in the Old Forest while they’re trapped by Old Man Willow
that goes on for two minutes.
The music that accompanies Tom Bombadil’s appearance
The fact that it looks like the Bombadils are about to eat the hobbits
Bombadil copping a feel of Goldberry.
The first, terrifying appearance of the Barrow Wight.
The fact that part one ends with Frodo lost and alone being chased by the Barrow Wight
– talk about a cliffhanger!
The fact that part two begins with the narrator staring silently at the camera, rather than
recapping what happened in part one.
The fact that the hobbits lying in the barrow down with a sword on their throats is an iconic
scene from the book that’s not in any other film adaptation.
Can I just briefly interrupt the run through of the film to say that the decision to take
the Old Forest, Bombadil, and the Barrow Downs out of the Jackson films was completely justified?
They add nothing to the story, slow the whole thing down, and this whole twenty minute sequence
in Khraniteli clearly shows how inconsequential they are to the wider plot. Go ahead, leave
an angry comment about how much you like Tom Bombadil – you know I’m right and I will
die on this hill.
Anyway, back to the highlights of the film.
The filmmakers giving Strider a scar to make him look extra badass.
A wild Barliamn appears!
Meester.
The way everyone pronounces Aragorn.
The ringwraiths attacking Frodo, and no one else is to be seen, including Aragorn, who
in the scene immediately beforehand said he would protect Frodo.
The fact that the ringwraiths stab Frodo, then just leave and go back to Mordor.
Frodo saying Gandalf.
The court jesters at the Council of Elrond.
Matt Damon as Elrond.
The tiny orc dance while Saruman gives his evil speech.
Gandalf riding the giant eagle to escape. [contagious laughter]
This shot of the Fellowship all together. Is…Gandalf carrying Gimli like a baby? Oh
wait, no, that’s not Gimli, they’re just USING GIMLI AS A TABLE. Is that racist? I
feel like that’s racist.
The fellowship getting attack by warg puppets
The fellowship running away from the wargs against a stationary greenscreen backdrop.
When they get to Moria, Frodo immediately charges forward for no reason yelling “for
the Shire” and falls down a hole and we spend the next two minutes rescuing him.
Strider on the rope rescuing Frodo, with these random shots of Legolas reacting for no reason.
Also did I mention that Legolas is played by a woman in this film.
Any reaction shot with Merry
The ten seconds of the orc attack and Aragorn’s reaction sums up this entire movie.
How Boromir fighting looks like a Mortal Kombat ripoff
Legolas’s sword being made of tin foil
Aragorn crossing the bridge of Khazad-dum – sorry, no there’s Balrog in this version.
Everyone else crossing the bridge, including Gandalf, even though a few minutes earlier
Gandalf got overwhelmed by orcs and died.
In the shot after we just saw Gandalf cross the bridge, Aragorn says that Gandalf died.
The dancing elves of Lothlorien.
Pippin being distracted by this bell like he’s a cat.
This terrible miniature used to establish Galadhirim city.
It’s only a model. Shh!
Galadriel
Evil Galadriel
Then, the moment you have all been waiting for. Frodo looks into the water – which
for some reason is red – and sees Sauron. Are you ready? Are you ready for Soviet Sauron.
Whatever it is you’re imagining, I guarantee you, it’s not this. OK, here he is.
Honestly, I have no words.
This happens almost right before the end of the film. All that remains is Boromir confronting
Frodo and trying to take the Ring, which is a pretty boring climax to be honest, then
Frodo resolving to leave the Fellowship behind. Sam catches him, and, like in the book, he
sticks with his Mr Frodo. The film ends with them riding off into the proverbial sunset,
holding hands. Even in Soviet Russia, the friendship between Frodo and Sam is unbreakable.
Thank you for watching. You can see me talk more about the Lord of the Rings here, and
if you enjoyed this video then please consider clicking here to subscribe. Namarie.