The Twelve Months (1956)

Original title

Двенадцать месяцев

Directed by

Mikhail Botov, Ivan Ivanov-Vano

Genre

fairy tale, fantasy film

Country

Soviet Union

Runtime

52 min

Rating

6.3 of 10 from 56 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young girl is sent into a snowy forest in winter to find flowers for a cruel queen. With the help of the twelve months of the year, she discovers that kindness and courage can overcome selfishness and greed.

fairy-talewhimsicalfolkloricvisually stylizedpoeticsatiricalmusicalmeditative

What happens

The Twelve Months (Russian: Двенадцать месяцев; Dvenadtsat mesyatsev) is a 1956 Soviet traditionally animated feature film directed by the "patriarch of Russian animation", Ivan Ivanov-Vano. It was produced at the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow and is based on the fairy-tale play of the same name by Samuil Marshak. The scene of action in the animated film isn't specified, but on a picture it is clear that action happens in the West (in the original of the story of Marshak — in Bohemia, then part of the Austrian empire) at the turn of the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. The animated film plot quite precisely reflects story events, thus the particular emphasis is placed on ridiculing the shortcomings of an absolute monarchy. The film's sound and image were restored in by Krupnyy Plan, who released it on video and DVD in Russia in 2005. An English-subtitled edition of the Russian-language version has not been released. However, Films by Jove released the film on DVD in 1999 as "volume 3" of its Stories from My Childhood series - this version features a choice of English, French or Spanish soundtracks. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

• Der Zauberbrunnen (1956)
• The Tale of the Snow Maiden (1957)
• Twelve Months (1980)
• The Snow Queen (1957)
• When Christmas Trees Light Up (1950)
• The Twelve Months (1973)
• The Flower with Seven Colors (1948)
• Таёжная сказка (1951)