Three years after becoming the first Russian filmmaker to
shoot in CinemaScope with his lush fantasy epic Ilya Muromets for
Mosfilm, Aleksandr Ptushko set his sights on Finland with what would become a
most unique continuation of his distinctive and enchanting sense of cinema
magic.
Bringing Soviet production
company Mosfilm into collaboration with Finnish company Suomi-Filmi and based
upon the 19th century Finnish national epic poem Kalevala (influential
on Tolkien for instance), what would become known as Sampo was a loose
smattering of key events of the Kalevala text as a broadly appealing
widescreen fantasy epic suitable for all audiences. The end results of Ptushko’s film co-directed
by Finnish filmmaker Risto Orko are phantasmagorical if not breathtakingly
beautiful beyond words.
Soon the son of Ilmarinen (and
film’s hero) Lemminakainen (Andris Oshin) tries to intervene, cheating death
and a few deadly obstacles including a viper pit with a red horse, boats of
fire, water walkers and a brutal winter followed by the witch Louhi quite
actively stealing the sunlight and plunging Earth into permanent darkness.
Spoken of the same breath as Ilya Muromets while
being far more kaleidoscopic in the set pieces designed by Aleksandr Makarov
(filmed on Mosfilm soundstages) and spectacular camerawork lensed by two
cinematographers Gennadi Tsekavyj and Viktor Yakushev, Sampo from top to
bottom is a staggeringly beautiful burst of cinematic energy of a most playful
kind.
Expanding the sound field from
mono to 4-track magnetic stereo surround this time around, rendered beautifully
on the newly 4K restored Blu-ray from Deaf Crocodile Films, Sampo is the
kind of film the likes of Mario Bava or Dario Argento would’ve been smitten
by. To call this a work of sheer sensory
overload would be putting it mildly.
Even without the sound on,
Ptushko’s such a visual filmmaker whose works are so fun to look at it is
dazzling to behold firsthand. Few
directors of Russian, Finnish, Italian, or any descent of the world made gargantuan
special-effects that looked anything remotely like Ptushko’s filmic pop-up
storybooks.
Thankfully
now, with Mosfilm and Suomi-Filmi remastering and revitalizing their libraries
of films compounded by renewed interest in the art of Aleksandr Ptushko who is
easily one of the world’s greatest filmmakers who ever lived of any
nationality, audiences today can witness the grandmaster of Russian fantasy films
flexing his creative muscles before swinging hard at unquestionably yet another
cinematic home run!
--Andrew Kotwicki