New Year is the main holiday of the calendar year. However, it is celebrated with special joy in Russia. In the West, preference is given to Christmas. Therefore, the best films about the New Year were shot in Russia, or rather, in the USSR. It so happened that to this day nothing has been created better than the good old films about the New Year.
New Year's films by Eldar Ryazanov
The main New Year's "film magician" is, of course, Eldar Ryazanov. And not only because he created the famous "Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!", Without which not a single New Year can do for almost 40 years, but also because long before that he had shot another wonderful New Year's film. "Carnival Night" was created in 1956 and today might seem archaic, if not for the atmosphere of fiery youth, cloudless joy and sparkling fun. It is curious that Ryazanov here invented a technique with artists walking between tables and a concert program transferred from the stage to the hall, which later became the basis of the popular TV show "Blue Light".
The Irony of Fate, which was released on television in 1975, has a completely different sound. Here youth has been replaced by maturity, and joy and joy have been replaced by light sadness. The soulful lyrical music of Mikael Tariverdiev and the wonderful poetry of Marina Tsvetaeva, Boris Pasternak, Evgeny Yevtushenko, Bela Akhmadulina, Alexander Kochetkov reinforce the slightly sad atmosphere of the film. Nevertheless, this heartfelt and completely realistically filmed story is perceived as a New Year's fairy tale for adults - a fairy tale about how, completely unexpectedly, on New Year's Eve, real happiness can come to the ordinary and not always happy life of lonely people.
New Year's tales for children and adults
In 1982, director Konstantin Bromberg shot another New Year's hit - the musical comedy "The Wizards". Adult viewers immediately fell in love with the fairy tale intended for them, despite the modern entourage, which does not hide the frank fabulousness of the plot. Everything is unusual here: the place of action is Kitezh-grad, raised from the bottom of the lake, the place of work of most of the characters is the Scientific Universal Institute of Extraordinary Services (NUINU), the profession of the main character is a witch (fortunately, beautiful and kind). And then - a completely traditional fairy tale with Ivanushka in love, who went to save his bride Alyonushka from a witch's spell, with the textbook villain Sataneev, who, like Koshchey the Immortal, claims the hand and heart of the beauty, with a happy ending, in which the spell imposed on the heroine is removed with the help kiss. Of course, "The Wizards" did not manage to surpass the "Irony of Fate" in popularity, but they look with no less pleasure.
Do not forget that New Year is a holiday especially loved by children. Perhaps the most popular New Year's fairy tale for them was filmed by directors Igor Usov and Gennady Kazansky in the same distant 1975, when The Irony of Fate was created. The film is called "The New Year's Adventures of Masha and Viti" and, just like in "The Wizards", the real world coexists with the fabulous one. The New Year's holiday is suddenly under the threat of disruption, because the evil Koschey kidnapped the Snow Maiden. Children are sent to her rescue - not for years serious, trusting only scientific knowledge Vitya and kind, believing in a fairy tale Masha.
Unfortunately, the modern world has become more rigid and rational, such wonderful, kind and naive fairy tales have ceased to be filmed in it. But people are still drawn to them and continue to endlessly watch the wonderful old films about the New Year.
