Underplayed Gems

Happiness (1935)

Happiness poster
Original title
Счастье
Directed by
Aleksandr Ivanovich Medvedkin
Genre
comedy film, silent film
Country
Soviet Union
Runtime
1h 35m
Rating
5.8 of 10 from 31 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

A poor peasant in pre-revolutionary Russia dreams of a better life. The film follows his comical attempts to escape poverty and find happiness during the era of Soviet collectivization.

satiricalslapstickwhimsicalabsurdfast-pacedplayfulexperimentalfolkloric

What happens

Happiness (Russian: Счастье, romanized: Schastye) is a 1935 silent satirical slapstick (or rather lubok) comedy set in the Russian Empire before the October Revolution and in the Soviet Union at the time of the collectivization. Medvedkin's original title was The Snatchers or The Possessors (Стяжатели). The original print featured an experimental color sequence illustrating a poor peasant's dreams of becoming a king. It was the first color production of the Mosfilm studio. According to Medvedkin, "At that time the peasant could not dream of anything multicoloured of beautiful. His dream was limited, and in that the technology helped". The sequence was discarded on account of its poor technical quality and is apparently lost. Unnoticed on its release, Happiness became well known in the 1960s among film scholars. It was especially championed by Chris Marker who included some excerpts from Happiness in his 1992 documentary The Last Bolshevik. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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