Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick. And
Speaker 3: today on Weird House Cinema, we are going to be
Speaker 3: discussing the nineteen seventy six Romanian Soviet French co produced
Speaker 3: psychotropic children's fairytale musical Mama aka Rock and Roll Wolf,
Speaker 3: directed by the Romanian filmmaker Eliza Beta Boston. And I
Speaker 3: really mean it when I say this movie has everything.
Speaker 3: It is so much, so fast, and so wonderful, infectiously
Speaker 3: lovable music. Russian ballet dancer is dressed up like spiders
Speaker 3: and or sparrows. Nearly just NonStop locomotive energy. Maybe flags
Speaker 3: a little bit in the second half of the movie,
Speaker 3: but at least the first half is like it. It
Speaker 3: is a freight train. It does not stop. It's got
Speaker 3: diverse frolicking theeomorphs in a secret village in the deep woods.
Speaker 3: It's got rooftop sea saws, bridges over nothing, goat boy, levitation,
Speaker 3: ice based wolf traps, strawberries coated and honeydew, a rainbow
Speaker 3: parrot with like mad auctioneer energy, plaintive, donkey, solos, pendulum beds,
Speaker 3: secret passwords, red squirrel, acorn rituals, A dangerously handsome bad
Speaker 3: boy wolf man, a gorgeous angelic goat mother, and non
Speaker 3: stop historical smoking. Yes, this is one of those where
Speaker 3: I am definitely in how have I never seen this before? Territory?
Speaker 3: A rock and roll wolf is so so in my
Speaker 3: wheelhouse and I can't recommend it enough, super weird and
Speaker 3: pushes like every single sensory boundary at once.
Speaker 2: I showed part of this to my wife at lunch
Speaker 2: after I'd finished watching it, and she thought it like
Speaker 2: an acid trip. And her follow up question was, how
Speaker 2: did Joe find out about this movie? And I don't
Speaker 2: have the answer. Do you have an answer? Can you
Speaker 2: answer it?
Speaker 3: For this? I wish I remember? No. I honestly I
Speaker 3: don't know how this movie first came onto my radar.
Speaker 3: I've like had it on a list of movies I
Speaker 3: was gonna come back and check out later, and then
Speaker 3: this week I did. I looked at my list and
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, okay, what's the deal with this one?
Speaker 3: So I know one reason I became intrigued this week
Speaker 3: is that I started looking into user reviews and comments
Speaker 3: online just how people were reacting to this movie, and
Speaker 3: I noticed there were several distinct tranches of audience reaction.
Speaker 3: One type was pretty similar to how I'm reacting now, like, WTF,
Speaker 3: I just discovered this insane movie as an adult. My
Speaker 3: senses are overwhelmed and I am delighted and confused. But interestingly,
Speaker 3: another type of reaction was and I think this is
Speaker 3: probably particularly common in people from certain countries in yours.
Speaker 3: It was a reaction like I grew up watching this
Speaker 3: over and over on TV, and it is intensely nostalgic
Speaker 3: for me. I couldn't verify this, but I read a
Speaker 3: bit of unsourced trivia online that this movie was played
Speaker 3: every year at Christmas on Norwegian television, where I believe
Speaker 3: it would have been known as a RockA Uven, meaning
Speaker 3: the Rock Wolf. And so I don't know. I guess
Speaker 3: we are in Christmas movie territory, whether whether or not
Speaker 3: we meant to be this week.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And it's when we get into the plot later on,
Speaker 2: it does seem like there is some sort of well,
Speaker 2: you know, so there is some winter folkloric magic going
Speaker 2: on here. So it does seem to fit well within
Speaker 2: like the Holiday movie Universe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, we get a winter fairy who comes and
Speaker 3: saves a little goat boy who has gotten lost in
Speaker 3: the in the wilderness. Oh but I should mention the
Speaker 3: third major type of reaction, so we've got the this
Speaker 3: movie is is weird. I love it. We've got this
Speaker 3: movie is anstee for me. I saw it when I
Speaker 3: was a kid. And then the third type is my
Speaker 3: fanatical celebrity crush is a weird pipe smoking wolf or
Speaker 3: a heavenly goat mother or both. Uh and this type
Speaker 3: of reaction could overlap with one of the other histories possibly,
Speaker 3: but a lot of people crushing on the main sort
Speaker 3: of lead animals in this movie.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this movie has dare I say, strong furry energy
Speaker 2: to it. If you if you at any point in
Speaker 2: your life, you've really gotten into the practical makeup effects
Speaker 2: for the cat's musical or perhaps the I finally remember
Speaker 2: this show Zublie Zoo starring Ben Vereen. This was a
Speaker 2: like a kid's musical dance show, very Broadway, and all
Speaker 2: the makeup was very cats.
Speaker 3: I've never seen Zubalizo, but I watched part of this
Speaker 3: movie with my wife and she she compared it to
Speaker 3: Zublizu as well.
Speaker 2: Yes, strong Zubali zoo energy and uh and yeah, it
Speaker 2: has a a lot of attractive people dressed up as
Speaker 2: these animals. So I did have to wonder at times
Speaker 2: like if I was bringing that energy into it with
Speaker 2: other people. We're having that reaction as well, because I
Speaker 2: just came off a couple of viewings of nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: six is were Wolf Woman. So I don't know if
Speaker 2: I'm letting like the were Wolf Woman experience taint my
Speaker 2: viewing of a family children's Christmas story, you know, from
Speaker 2: several countries away.
Speaker 3: No, I mean, it's not the only movie of this sort,
Speaker 3: but I think from what I can tell, everything explicit
Speaker 3: about it is, you know, very it's very family friendly,
Speaker 3: and it's you know, it's a children's movie. It's a
Speaker 3: fairy tale movie. But there's sort of a second level
Speaker 3: of interpretation that a lot of people I think, look
Speaker 3: back on it with after they grew up watching it,
Speaker 3: and in fact, regarding that first type of reaction, like
Speaker 3: all the people who were saying, oh, I watched this
Speaker 3: so many times as a child, like maybe on Norwy
Speaker 3: TV or in Norway. Somehow this connects to another interesting
Speaker 3: thing I found online which was a trailer for a
Speaker 3: live musical stage adaptation which played at the Norwegian National
Speaker 3: Theater in twenty eleven, and I so wish I could
Speaker 3: go back in time and see this. I would fly
Speaker 3: to Norway. If they do a revival, I don't know,
Speaker 3: maybe they keep doing this thing. But kind of interesting
Speaker 3: thing about it is the movie I think is firmly
Speaker 3: aimed at kids. It's like a it's extremely weird, but
Speaker 3: it is a family fairy tale adventure. Just from the trailer,
Speaker 3: this stage musical looks to me more explicitly aimed at adults.
Speaker 2: It has slight, slight, rocky horror energy.
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, soft, but yes, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 3: Like the little clips in the trailer feel like something
Speaker 3: in one sense, aimed at adults who have passionate nostalgia
Speaker 3: for a movie they loved as children, with a sense
Speaker 3: of irony about the weirder aspects. For example, a few
Speaker 3: of the clips from the stage version really seem to
Speaker 3: press on the sexual tension between Mamma Goat and mister Wolf. Like.
Speaker 3: I pulled out a few screenshots for you to look at.
Speaker 3: Rob This is again, this is not from the movie.
Speaker 3: This is from the stage version, where we've got Mamma
Speaker 3: Goat here spanking the wolf them just like making weird
Speaker 3: faces at each other. And then here's this one scene
Speaker 3: where suddenly Mamma Goat has had a costume change and
Speaker 3: she's no longer in her Romanian folk dress and is
Speaker 3: wearing some kind of black leather thing with a bunch
Speaker 3: of metal rivets.
Speaker 2: Yeah, at this point, I feel like we're in a
Speaker 2: meat love video.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, but no. Yeah. Again. To be clear, this
Speaker 3: does not happen in the movie. I think adult viewers
Speaker 3: will find it impossible to miss the weird tension between
Speaker 3: the wolf Titisuru and the goat mother Rada, but it's
Speaker 3: not explicit in the movie, and it's not played for
Speaker 3: laughs like it seems to be here. So technically this
Speaker 3: movie is a film adaptation of one version of the
Speaker 3: fairy tale known as The Wolf and the Seven Young
Speaker 3: Kids in the Brothers Grim Catalog. And we'll get to
Speaker 3: the details of that story later on. I'll summarize it
Speaker 3: when we get to the plot, but overall the movie
Speaker 3: is quite loose on plot. Rock and Roll Wolf is,
Speaker 3: like many musicals, more of an experience. It's kind of
Speaker 3: hard to communicate how much experience is packed into this
Speaker 3: eighty minute movie, the kind of time I personally had
Speaker 3: with it. The runtime just flew by, especially in the
Speaker 3: first half, with the song and dance number is just
Speaker 3: coming so fast, and the tone and the visual and
Speaker 3: sonic texture constantly switching up with this kind of rapid
Speaker 3: shuffling deck of cards kind of feeling. I loved Rock
Speaker 3: and Roll Wolf, and I think it's a real shame that,
Speaker 3: as far as I'm aware, there is not like a
Speaker 3: high quality blu ray of the English version available today.
Speaker 3: I really really want that, because this is a gem
Speaker 3: of a film. Oh and I guess sorry. That brings
Speaker 3: up a second impressive thing about this movie. It is
Speaker 3: a film where the main creative inputs were Romanian and Russian.
Speaker 3: But there is a native English version of the film,
Speaker 3: so not just subtitles, not even just a dub. There
Speaker 3: is a version of the movie where the songs have
Speaker 3: lyrics in English and are performed in English by the cast. Now,
Speaker 3: it might be different voice actors than the people playing
Speaker 3: the characters on screen. I'm not sure, because I did
Speaker 3: listen to snippets of songs from the different versions there's
Speaker 3: at least one in Romanian, one in Russian, and one
Speaker 3: in English. I don't know if there are any other
Speaker 3: language versions. And the voices sound kind of different to me,
Speaker 3: so I think it might be different singers. But like
Speaker 3: one example was that I recall in the Russian version
Speaker 3: the wolf's sound did a lot less suave than in
Speaker 3: the English version and more kind of rascally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did notice that the English track was recorded
Speaker 2: in London, so you know, I mean that kind of
Speaker 2: leads me to believe it is a different a different
Speaker 2: vocal cast for the English cut. But the English cuts,
Speaker 2: the version we watched, that's at least a version that
Speaker 2: as of this recording is floating around out there. I
Speaker 2: asked around about this movie at Video Drome here in Atlanta,
Speaker 2: the video rental store, and John, one of the guys
Speaker 2: who works there, is quite knowledgeable. He was looking around
Speaker 2: looking stuff up, and he pointed out there is a
Speaker 2: DVD version of this film, or a DVD R I'm
Speaker 2: not sure I'm the technical specs there, but there is
Speaker 2: some sort of diss you can buy. You might have
Speaker 2: to go on eBay to get it, he said, but
Speaker 2: it does exist. But in terms of like a really
Speaker 2: nice like Blu ray edition, which clearly a film like
Speaker 2: this deserves. He said, you know, a good place to
Speaker 2: watch out for it would maybe be the deaf Crocodile guys.
Speaker 2: That company puts out a number of great films, some
Speaker 2: you know, some Russian films for sure, and so that
Speaker 2: those would be the guys to pester with your with
Speaker 2: your requests for rock and roll Wolf aka Mama.
Speaker 3: Well, yes, I fully endorse that please put this out
Speaker 3: because this is you can tell you can just look
Speaker 3: through the core of visual assets here are fantastic. This
Speaker 3: is a movie of beautiful production values. It has these
Speaker 3: great sets. It's set in this fairy tale animal village
Speaker 3: in the middle of a forest with all these you know,
Speaker 3: strain like these Romanian folk cabins and weird sets. But
Speaker 3: it's also got like some disco kind of sets.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: So yeah, the psychotropic elements dominate as well. The costumes
Speaker 3: and the makeup are just you know, push to eleven.
Speaker 3: It's almost constantly something something beautiful to behold.
Speaker 2: It is definitely a nineteen seventies musical. There's that no
Speaker 2: doubting that. If you have ever seen like the original
Speaker 2: film adaptation of Godspell. Indeed Rocky Heart Picture Show or
Speaker 2: a movie if we've talked about on the show before,
Speaker 2: The Apple, which came out in the nineteen eighties, but
Speaker 2: he's still a seventies rock musical, like this has all
Speaker 2: of that energy, the rock and rolls there, the disco
Speaker 2: elements are there, and also that kind of like bohemian vibe.
Speaker 2: You know of these troubadours and bards floating around in
Speaker 2: a troubled decade but still keeping you know, some of
Speaker 2: that energy of the late nineteen sixties alive in their art.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hey, hey, hey, Wolf's on the way. So, like
Speaker 3: I can see that comparison with The Apple and all that,
Speaker 3: And another one I saw people a comparison I saw
Speaker 3: people making online was Tommy you know, of the Who album.
Speaker 3: So I absolutely see that. Though something about this does
Speaker 3: feel a little it has common esthetic elements, but it
Speaker 3: feels less decadent than a lot of your western seventies
Speaker 3: rock operas. It feels more wholesome and kind of forest
Speaker 3: magic based.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, it is ultimately angling for children and features
Speaker 2: a lot of child characters. So yeah, it's it's it's
Speaker 2: managing to be all these things at once.
Speaker 3: But on the other hand, don't want to over sell
Speaker 3: the wholesomeness or make it sound bland like it does
Speaker 3: have strong Mother Goose drops acid energy.
Speaker 2: Is that your elevator pitch?
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's got to be mother. Mother Goose drops acid
Speaker 3: and joins the spiders from Mars.
Speaker 2: All right, you know, I'm not sure we actually have
Speaker 2: any trailer audio for this one, given the nature of
Speaker 2: the picture. We'll hunt around a little bit and if
Speaker 2: we can find something, we'll throw it in here. If not,
Speaker 2: maybe we can get JJ to sample just a tiny
Speaker 2: bit of the audio. If not, you know, you'll never
Speaker 2: hear this part because we'll cut it out. I shall
Speaker 2: say like this.
Speaker 3: Esse home. Now you can open the door. Don't be
Speaker 3: afraid now, not any more. He suits costious pain terrors
Speaker 3: of occupation. We let up helping can in sua summation.
Speaker 2: He ho ho, I'm the donkeeper treacle he hoy.
Speaker 3: All my rather a good care cale.
Speaker 2: All right, if you want to see this film for yourself,
Speaker 2: we already discussed ways you might be able to find it,
Speaker 2: and perhaps find it in the future. Who knows, but
Speaker 2: this is always the case. We do urge you to
Speaker 2: watch it in the best quality possible in however you
Speaker 2: obtain it. All right, let's get into the people behind
Speaker 2: this picture, all right. Starting at the top, we have
Speaker 2: Elizabeta Boston born nineteen thirty one, the director Romanian film
Speaker 2: director and screenwriter whose credits include nineteen sixty four's Memories
Speaker 2: of My Childhood, nineteen sixty eight's Kingdom in the Clouds,
Speaker 2: seventy twos Veronica, and seventy threes Veronica Comes Back. She's
Speaker 2: been involved in various stage and screen projects over the
Speaker 2: course of her long career, as well as in academia
Speaker 2: concerning film.
Speaker 3: Apparently, these Veronica movies she did are also sort of wild,
Speaker 3: sort of fairy tale fantasies aimed at children, and I'm
Speaker 3: interested in checking those out because oh and we didn't
Speaker 3: I guess we didn't mention this yet. But one of
Speaker 3: the appeals of getting into this movie this week is that,
Speaker 3: of course, every Christmas season, Rob and I get in
Speaker 3: get in mind the mind of Jack Frost or moros
Speaker 3: Co the Great the you know, Christmas Tale of the
Speaker 3: Russo Finish Taiga. But that one I saw little echoes
Speaker 3: of that in the movie we're talking about today, and
Speaker 3: in the screenshots I saw from the Veronica movies, I
Speaker 3: saw some comparisons one could make to moros Coo as well,
Speaker 3: So those are going to be on my radar. I
Speaker 3: want to come back and check them out. All right.
Speaker 2: As for the writing, here, we have two screenplay credits.
Speaker 2: One is a is a Russian and the other is
Speaker 2: a Romanian. We have a Yuri Intin born nineteen thirty five,
Speaker 2: Russian author, a musician whose other credits include various other
Speaker 2: children's pictures. And then we have Vasilica is trade Livenin
Speaker 2: teen thirty four through two thousand and two, Romanian producer
Speaker 2: and writer who works several times in a writing capacity
Speaker 2: with Bustan. And this is a good a time as
Speaker 2: any to add usual caveat my apologies for any mispronunciations
Speaker 2: of the various Russian, Romanian and French names that are
Speaker 2: going to be involved in this multi national production here,
Speaker 2: all right, This film, there's no doubt about it, stars
Speaker 2: Ludmila Gorchhenko playing Ratra the Goat. This is the titular
Speaker 2: Mama from the versions of the film you'll find with
Speaker 2: the title Mama, and she lived nineteen thirty five through
Speaker 2: twenty eleven.
Speaker 3: Radiating goodness and light even when the forest is dark.
Speaker 3: She has strong you know, she's the paladin, she's the
Speaker 3: heroin character, and she comes off as so good and
Speaker 3: so pure, even when she's like flirting with the wolf
Speaker 3: who's going to eat her children.
Speaker 2: I mean, you very well may think that you were
Speaker 2: immune to the wiles of various Satyrs and Baphamets and
Speaker 2: even mister Tumness, but you know, you need to watch
Speaker 2: this film and see how Rada hits for you, because
Speaker 2: her charisma, her brightness or just absolute goodness shines through.
Speaker 2: And also something about you know, she has this little
Speaker 2: button nose that seems to just work so well with
Speaker 2: the big goat horns and all.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, she does have goat horns and they do
Speaker 3: the It feels like a very Eastern block style of
Speaker 3: makeup effects. Though I think the makeup in this movie
Speaker 3: might have been done by the fringe.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure, but yeah, I think I saw at
Speaker 2: least some French credits for the makeup.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, anyway, it's something I recognize from Morosco as well,
Speaker 3: that the freckles she has, which are just done. It
Speaker 3: looks like with like a black felt tip pin, just
Speaker 3: black felt tip little freckles on her cheeks well.
Speaker 2: Grushenko was a Ukrainian born, Russian and Soviet actress, singer,
Speaker 2: and overall in her While she at times was seen
Speaker 2: as too Western by Soviet entertainment tastemakers earlier in her career,
Speaker 2: she went on to be a highly regarded actress in
Speaker 2: Soviet and post Soviet Russia, receiving the highest acting honors
Speaker 2: during both eras she worked well into her seventies on
Speaker 2: stage and in TV and film. She put out several
Speaker 2: albums in the seventies, eighties, and nineties, and her best
Speaker 2: known films include nineteen fifty six's Carnival Nights, nineteen seventy Nines,
Speaker 2: Siberi Day, and nineteen seventy six is Twenty Days Without War,
Speaker 2: which was apparently suppressed to some degree due to its
Speaker 2: anti war themes and wasn't released until nineteen eighty one,
Speaker 2: and that was after the success of seventy nine Siberi Day,
Speaker 2: so you know, at that point there was no stopping her.
Speaker 2: I was exploring her filmography a bit I have this
Speaker 2: is the only film I've seen starring her, but clearly
Speaker 2: she's a huge name and a number of prestige pictures, like,
Speaker 2: she's not an actress that you find in any like
Speaker 2: sci fi and horror pictures. But of note, there's nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety one's Sex Kaska, which I think translates to sex story,
Speaker 2: and it's a fantasy mystery picture. It looks like it
Speaker 2: has some like sexy aspects to it, but also seems
Speaker 2: to have a very almost kind of noir quality to
Speaker 2: the filmmaking. The only other two films that I think
Speaker 2: fall roughly into a fantasy genre for her were nineteen
Speaker 2: sixty ones The Man from Nowhere in nineteen seventy one's Ten.
Speaker 2: So yeah, this is my first time seeing her in
Speaker 2: a film, but it seems based on what I was reading,
Speaker 2: and like the oh bit that ran in the Guardian
Speaker 2: when she passed, it seems difficult to overstress how successful
Speaker 2: she was as an actress in Russia.
Speaker 3: It seems hard to believe that she didn't do more
Speaker 3: like sci fi and genre type movies. When you look
Speaker 3: at some of her press photos, yere one you share
Speaker 3: I don't know what this is from, but there's one
Speaker 3: photo you shared with me. It's clearly from some kind
Speaker 3: of magazine shoot or something where she's I guess she's
Speaker 3: having a picnic. She's sitting out in the middle of
Speaker 3: a field with a blanket spread out under her, and
Speaker 3: she's got you know, kind of like a rattan lined
Speaker 3: wine bottle there, but she's got several daggers in ornate sheathes.
Speaker 3: She's wearing one of those like felt mountaineer hats with
Speaker 3: feathers in it. She's got a flask of some guy
Speaker 3: next to her, just some kind of bunches of grapes
Speaker 3: lying around, and then a falcon in her hand like
Speaker 3: it's per she's got one of those leather gloves and
Speaker 3: just yeah, falconing.
Speaker 2: Between this image and the still I shared with you
Speaker 2: from Sex Story, in which she's wearing like some sort
Speaker 2: of like she got crazy makeup on and this big
Speaker 2: furry hat, like both of these images, and i'd really
Speaker 2: to an extent also the screen cap here we have
Speaker 2: from today's movie. If I encountered all of these and
Speaker 2: like a Google image search, I would be like, get
Speaker 2: this AI stuff out of here. Nice try mid journey,
Speaker 2: But I'm not believing that this is a real image
Speaker 2: of a woman with a falcon and a ceremonial dagger
Speaker 2: and a big flowery hat out on a pick neck.
Speaker 3: Yeah, somebody put into the prompt like a Russian actress
Speaker 3: as Edward scissorhands.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but these are all real, These are actual photos.
Speaker 2: I think I found the bird one on a blog
Speaker 2: about like Russian pop culture. All right, so that that
Speaker 2: is our star. That is mama that. But on the
Speaker 2: other hand, this film was also known as rock and
Speaker 2: Roll Wolf, So who is our wolf? Well, the character
Speaker 2: is Titisuru, played by Mikhail Boyarsky born nineteen forty nine,
Speaker 2: Russian actor and singer, apparently best known for some adventure
Speaker 2: films he did, especially a nineteen seventy nine Soviet Three
Speaker 2: Musketeers movie in which he played the lead role of d'Artagnan.
Speaker 2: In fact, I think the name of that movie this
Speaker 2: may be in translation or you know, international releases, but
Speaker 2: I saw it referenced as d'Artagnan and the Three Musketeers.
Speaker 2: So he must have stood out from the rest of
Speaker 2: the bum.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, wait a minute, No is d'Artagnan one of
Speaker 3: the three Musketeers. I think he might not be.
Speaker 2: He's not. It's been a long time sin they've done
Speaker 2: Three Musketeers.
Speaker 3: But I gotta look this up. I'm not gonna be
Speaker 3: able to rest until I know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I haven't. As a kid, I watched at least
Speaker 2: one of the versions that had Oliver Reid in it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, it's been a long time since they interacted.
Speaker 2: Because sometimes there are four of them. Right, they're three musketeers.
Speaker 3: Right, Yes, that's right. It's d'Artagnan, Athos Aramis, and Porthos.
Speaker 3: I could, I just looked it up.
Speaker 2: So Porthos was Oliver Reed.
Speaker 3: Okay, I didn't know that, but yeah, that's right. It's
Speaker 3: like d'Artagnan appreciates these other three guys, the three Musketeers.
Speaker 2: All right, Well there you go. Well this is apparently
Speaker 2: his big role that skyrocketed his career. I believe he's
Speaker 2: currently retired from acting, but apparently remains an active voice
Speaker 2: in Russian politics.
Speaker 3: So this guy is obviously a big part of the
Speaker 3: impression this movie makes on people. Like I think there's
Speaker 3: a reason that one of the release names, like the
Speaker 3: international title was rock and Roll Wolf because people online
Speaker 3: have thoughts about this guy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I mean he's a slind, tall slender really,
Speaker 2: you know, has like kind of kind of lichen, you know,
Speaker 2: aspects to his his body and face already. But yeah,
Speaker 2: he's wearing all black. He's constantly smoking a pipe, and
Speaker 2: I mean constantly. I don't know if there's a single
Speaker 2: scene where he isn't smoking a pipe. He's always creeping around. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he has a real rock star energy. Reminded. I was
Speaker 2: reminded at times of like Frank Zappa, you know.
Speaker 3: Yes, yeah, a little bit Frank Zappa, because he's got that.
Speaker 3: He's got a strong mustache and part of a little
Speaker 3: beard with with the dark hair and the heavy eyebrows.
Speaker 3: I'm thinking a cross between somewhere between Jerreth the Goblin
Speaker 3: King and I remember in Almost Famous, when Billy Krudi
Speaker 3: plays a rock star, there's a little bit of a
Speaker 3: resemblance there. He's the one.
Speaker 2: I'm a Golden God, right I remember, remember.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, So there's a good
Speaker 3: bit of that. But he is just a just a
Speaker 3: rascally gyrate and rock star in the middle of this
Speaker 3: fairy tale village with a twinkle in his eye so
Speaker 3: bright it would be like registered on telescopes and other
Speaker 3: star systems, like he is up to no good. Oh,
Speaker 3: and I almost forgot to mention this is true of
Speaker 3: most of the characters in the movie. But it's especially
Speaker 3: notable in his case wearing an Amadaeas style wig, gigantic
Speaker 3: voluminous wig in his case with just these you know,
Speaker 3: kind of swishes of curly wavy hair going all over
Speaker 3: the place. Everybody's got their own type of voluminous wig,
Speaker 3: but his is I don't know, it looks really good.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So we'll have a lot more to say about
Speaker 2: this performance, but at this point we're going to get
Speaker 2: into some of the supporting players and animals playing Donkey.
Speaker 2: We have George Mihaitza born nineteen forty eight. This is
Speaker 2: a Romanian actor and direct director, apparently a pretty big
Speaker 2: name in Romanian cinema. His films include nineteen sixty eight's
Speaker 2: Reconstruction and two thousand and eight Silent Wedding, as well
Speaker 2: as the sci fi comedy A Fantastic Comedy from nineteen
Speaker 2: seventy five. This was I thought one of the creepier
Speaker 2: characters in the film. I don't know, every time Donkey
Speaker 2: was on screen, I was at least a little creeped out,
Speaker 2: in part because he falls in with the gang that
Speaker 2: is supporting mister Wolf, that's supporting Suru. In his various schemes,
Speaker 2: but I don't know. There's something about his face, like
Speaker 2: he puts out this like calm, serene kind of clown face,
Speaker 2: but he's like actively supporting the main villain. And he's
Speaker 2: a donkey, Like this is not an animal that I
Speaker 2: would necessarily think of as, Oh, yeah, the donkey's gonna
Speaker 2: definitely fall in with the wolf.
Speaker 3: He's the only herbivore in the wolf gang.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what does that mean? Maybe gets into I don't know.
Speaker 2: It could be something cultural. We've talked before about about
Speaker 2: donkeys and how sometimes they are associated, at least in
Speaker 2: ancient Babylon or ancient Sumeria, with various demons and so forth.
Speaker 3: So I don't know. His emotional key is strange. He's
Speaker 3: like a morose gray clown. Where we were just talking
Speaker 3: about everybody's wigs. His wig is gray Nigel Toughnell, and
Speaker 3: he has got big donkey ears on top, though he
Speaker 3: strangely has a lot of soul at a few moments.
Speaker 3: Do you remember the he haw song, Like the part
Speaker 3: where he's just plaintively singing he haw, he haw, he haw.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and Andy gets a love interest later then
Speaker 2: I don't know why, but that was decided we needed that,
Speaker 2: so so yes, Donkey, we'll come back to Donkey, fascinating
Speaker 2: character in the Rock and Roll Wolf universe. Another care
Speaker 2: this is on when we're introduced to, like right off
Speaker 2: the bat, we have the character Parrot. It is kind
Speaker 2: of a stretch to see him as a parrot. At first,
Speaker 2: he seems like maybe he's some sort of a clown,
Speaker 2: but yeah, he's a parrot. Played by Florian Pittis who
Speaker 2: of nineteen forty three through two thousand and seven. This
Speaker 2: is a Romanian actor, a folk musician and general entertainer.
Speaker 3: They mainly signal that he's a parrot just by giving
Speaker 3: him a very colorful outfit and wig. But yeah, he
Speaker 3: doesn't have a beak or anything. And the role of
Speaker 3: the parrot here is interesting because he's a kind of
Speaker 3: entertainer slash vender or slash auctioneer. You know, he's kind.
Speaker 2: Of a traveling bard or something, perhaps you know, music man,
Speaker 2: perhaps I don't know. At times I was like, it
Speaker 2: was this guy up to no good? Is he a
Speaker 2: con man or something? But now he's just here to
Speaker 2: tell stories and sing songs and gather everyone together inside
Speaker 2: the magical Disco Ball.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's interesting the level that they go to communicate
Speaker 3: what animal you person is. So I'd say, you know Rada.
Speaker 3: I mean, she looks very human in one sense, but
Speaker 3: you can tell she's a goat. She's got the clearer
Speaker 3: in the ears. There's no mistaking a parrot here. I
Speaker 3: don't know. Yeah, he could just be like a human clown.
Speaker 3: And there's another one, like the bear family. They don't
Speaker 3: work that hard to make them come off as bears.
Speaker 3: They just look like humans in strange makeup.
Speaker 2: They just look like human clowns. And in fact, I
Speaker 2: don't think the next character, Father Martin the Bear, is
Speaker 2: named in the English version that we watched, but Father
Speaker 2: Martin the Bear is played by noted Soviet and Russian
Speaker 2: clown and circus artists Ol'legg Popoff, who lived nineteen thirty
Speaker 2: through twenty sixteen. Not to be confused, I think there's
Speaker 2: an old egg pop Off Mma fighter right now. This
Speaker 2: is a different different. This guy's a lover not a fighter,
Speaker 2: and laugher not a fighter. Maybe mostly worked in purely
Speaker 2: Russian film, but also appeared in nineteen seventy six is
Speaker 2: the Bluebird. I wasn't familiar with this, but this is
Speaker 2: a an American Soviet co production. An American Soviet co
Speaker 2: production made during the height of the Cold War, starring
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda.
Speaker 3: Huh, I did not know there was such a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know much about it beyond that, but uh,
Speaker 2: that's fascinating. As for Olig pop Off, I'm not sure,
Speaker 2: but I feel like this is a name I'd heard before.
Speaker 2: I don't know if in the past, someone like I
Speaker 2: ran into a clowning enthusiast at a party or something
Speaker 2: and they decided to tell me about the Great Olig
Speaker 2: pop Off, but I feel like this name has come
Speaker 2: up for me before. And this is also, by the way,
Speaker 2: a guy. When you see him in the film, you're like,
Speaker 2: this guy's a pro clown. There's no doubt about it.
Speaker 3: Not at all in how he physically looks, but in
Speaker 3: the way that he is dressed here and the way
Speaker 3: that he acts, like his physical comedy reminded me of
Speaker 3: Harpo Marx.
Speaker 2: Hmmm, yes, all right. Next, we have a severely Kramarov
Speaker 2: playing the young wolf. Let's see there's another They refer
Speaker 2: to him as something else like little young you, nephew
Speaker 2: wolf something, but he's definitely part of the villain gang obviously.
Speaker 2: I mean he's a blood relative.
Speaker 3: But yeah.
Speaker 2: He lived nineteen thirty four through nineteen ninety five, a
Speaker 2: Soviet actor who then ended up immigrating to the US
Speaker 2: in nineteen seventy nine at the what was apparently the
Speaker 2: height of his popularity in the USSR, and his subsequent
Speaker 2: US films included nineteen eighty four's Moscow in the Hudson
Speaker 2: starring Robin Williams, twenty ten, The Year We Make Contact,
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six is Armed and Dangerous, nineteen eighty eight's
Speaker 2: Red Heat, and nineteen eighty nine's Tango in Cash. I
Speaker 2: don't have to tell you that he generally played supporting
Speaker 2: Russian characters and or Russian bad guys in these pictures.
Speaker 3: One of these days I got to watch Red Heat.
Speaker 3: Not that I expected to be good. It just seems
Speaker 3: like one of those that would be a kind of
Speaker 3: history lesson.
Speaker 2: I think, of those the films I just named, twenty
Speaker 2: ten is the one I need to see. I haven't
Speaker 2: seen that one, and I've heard that while it's no.
Speaker 2: Two thousand and one, it is interesting in its own right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've seen it. It's not bad, but it's I
Speaker 3: don't know. I just don't know if I feel like
Speaker 3: two thousand and one needs needs a sequel film, but
Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, go for it.
Speaker 2: I saw Moscow on the Hudson though at a very
Speaker 2: young age, way too young. It has as I recall,
Speaker 2: there's like a lot of naked Robin Williams in it,
Speaker 2: but I don't remember its quality beyond that. I don't
Speaker 2: think I was at an age to understand what this
Speaker 2: movie was even about. Let's see moving on, Okay, This
Speaker 2: is just a very supporting character, but she stands out
Speaker 2: all the time in the scenes because she's our hot
Speaker 2: squirrel lady. She is played by Marina Poliak born nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty one, Russian actress best known for this film. Maybe
Speaker 2: she was a squirrel woman, I don't know, And if so,
Speaker 2: like it's it's hard to get work in serious cinema.
Speaker 3: You mean, in real life she was part squirrel. I
Speaker 3: think she.
Speaker 2: I don't think she's in makeup here. She's just a
Speaker 2: human squirrel person.
Speaker 3: There are near constant squirrel antics in this film. You know,
Speaker 3: there'll be a scene where you're trying to focus on
Speaker 3: what the main characters are doing, but then a squirrel
Speaker 3: just like runs through the frame.
Speaker 2: All right. The next character is the Swallow. I thought
Speaker 2: she was a spider when I watched the film, because
Speaker 2: the spider people like, she kind of looks like a
Speaker 2: spider woman. I don't know, Like.
Speaker 3: She lives in a tree and dangles from threads.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like she doesn't have a beak, and she also
Speaker 2: doesn't have like mandibles or anything. But but yeah, I
Speaker 2: thought she was a spider. She's played by Violetta Andrei
Speaker 2: born nineteen forty one, a Romanian actress whose credits include
Speaker 2: the East German sci fi film The Dust of the Stars,
Speaker 2: which I believe I've seen and it's one that's been
Speaker 2: on the Weird House Cinema list for a while. To
Speaker 2: come back to, okay, all right, And then coming to
Speaker 2: the musical credits, we have two. One's French, one's Romanian.
Speaker 2: The French composer that's credited is Just Bournois, who lived
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty six through twenty sixteen, not to be confused
Speaker 2: with the French silent film era director of the same name.
Speaker 2: This guy was a composer songwriter. He composed a few
Speaker 2: songs that were made famous by Bridget Bardot in the
Speaker 2: late sixties, and he also had a singles run as
Speaker 2: a musician in the early to mid nineteen sixties. And
Speaker 2: then on the Romanian side we have Domesticole Popa or
Speaker 2: Papa nineteen twenty one through twenty thirteen. He's a Romanian
Speaker 2: composer who worked with the director of this film on
Speaker 2: numerous projects. I think he scored Veronica. I could be
Speaker 2: wrong on that, but if it wasn't Veronica, it was
Speaker 2: one of the other pictures that she'd done.
Speaker 3: As I said earlier, I think the music in the
Speaker 3: movie is quite strong in constant.
Speaker 2: This is so, you know, there are different types of musicals,
Speaker 2: and you know, I don't even know that I have
Speaker 2: the terminology in my head for the different types, but
Speaker 2: this is one where there are a handful of songs,
Speaker 2: but we keep coming back to them again and again,
Speaker 2: different characters singing them, also different renditions of those numbers,
Speaker 2: and it's nearly constant. It's not one of these where
Speaker 2: all right, we've had a little dialogue and now it's
Speaker 2: time for a full blown song. So much, but it's
Speaker 2: also not opera.
Speaker 3: You know. Yeah, And it really varies in terms of
Speaker 3: genre like. Parts of this are full on like rock opera.
Speaker 3: They're like rock songs, almost prog rock. Others feel more
Speaker 3: like traditional kind of stage musical numbers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and at times it's a little like we've got
Speaker 2: some almost kind of like a Caribbean drum beat going
Speaker 2: on at times, you know.
Speaker 3: And the parrot songs, Yeah, the parrot.
Speaker 2: Songs, which I guess that makes sense, like what's a
Speaker 2: parrot doing here? Like it turn in from somewhere else.
Speaker 2: Maybe we brought some different drum beats with it. And
Speaker 2: then other times there's certainly what feels like more of
Speaker 2: a I don't know, you know, you know, Russo or
Speaker 2: Romanian like folk music kind of mentality there certainly in
Speaker 2: some of like the more lullabot eccentric songs we hear.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I agreed. So I figure when we start off
Speaker 3: talking about the plot, we should talk about the folktale
Speaker 3: this is based on I mentioned earlier. This is based
Speaker 3: on a traditional fairy tale, and so the Grim's fairy
Speaker 3: Tales rendition of this story is known as The Wolf
Speaker 3: and the Seven Young Kids. Here, I'm going to be
Speaker 3: drawing on a translation that's available online by D. L
Speaker 3: Ashleman and The story goes like this. So you've got
Speaker 3: a mother goat who has seven children, and they live
Speaker 3: together in a house in the forest, and one day
Speaker 3: mother has to leave home to forage for something to eat.
Speaker 3: She warns her children that there is a wolf in
Speaker 3: the woods, and while she is gone, the wolf of
Speaker 3: the woods will come to the door and ask to
Speaker 3: be let inside, and if they let him through the door,
Speaker 3: he will eat them all up, so they better keep
Speaker 3: the door shut. The children ask, how are we to
Speaker 3: know if it's you coming home, mummy, And so she says,
Speaker 3: if the young go here knocking at the door, they'll
Speaker 3: be able to know that it's their mother by listening
Speaker 3: for her soft voice and looking at her feet, either
Speaker 3: under the door or through the window. And the wolf
Speaker 3: will have a rough voice and will have furry black paws.
Speaker 3: And so she goes out. She leaves the house, and
Speaker 3: then the text reads quote, it was not long before
Speaker 3: someone knocked at the door and called out open the door, children, Dear,
Speaker 3: your mother is here and has brought something for each
Speaker 3: one of you. But the little kids knew from the
Speaker 3: rough voice that it was the wolf. We will not
Speaker 3: open the door, they cried out, you are not our mother.
Speaker 3: She has a soft and gentle voice, but your voice
Speaker 3: is rough. You are the wolf. So after this, the
Speaker 3: wolf is like, hmm okay, thwarted. So he goes to
Speaker 3: a shop and he buys a piece of chalk and
Speaker 3: then he eats the chalk and that makes his voice soft.
Speaker 3: Don't know how that works, but that is what the
Speaker 3: story says. He goes back to the house again and
Speaker 3: pretends to be the mother, goat on once again. This
Speaker 3: time the kids they hear the soft voice, but then
Speaker 3: they look out the window and they see the wolf's
Speaker 3: black paw and they know he is a wolf, and
Speaker 3: they tell him to go away. And then the text
Speaker 3: reads quote. So the wolf ran to a baker and said,
Speaker 3: I have sprained my foot. Rubbed some dough on it
Speaker 3: for me. After the baker had rubbed a dough on
Speaker 3: his foot, the wolf ran to the miller and said,
Speaker 3: sprinkle some white flour on my foot for me. The
Speaker 3: miller thought this wolf wants to deceive someone and refused
Speaker 3: to do it. So the wolf said, if you will
Speaker 3: not do it, I will eat you up. That frightened
Speaker 3: the miller, and he made his paw white for him. Yes,
Speaker 3: that is the way people are morals in the middle
Speaker 3: of the story, that is the way people are so anyway,
Speaker 3: Now that he has swallowed the chalk to make his
Speaker 3: voice soft and gotten the flowered up dough foot, the
Speaker 3: wolf goes back to the house and tries it again,
Speaker 3: tries again. This time he does trick. The young goats,
Speaker 3: and the little goats led him inside, and he eats
Speaker 3: all of them except for the youngest one, who hides
Speaker 3: inside a clock. Then, satisfied, the wolf goes off takes
Speaker 3: a nap in a meadow. Meanwhile, mother Goat comes home
Speaker 3: from her foraging, and she finds the house all in
Speaker 3: disarray and her children missing. And then she finally she
Speaker 3: locates the youngest goat hiding in the clock, who tells
Speaker 3: her what happened, and together they run to the meadow
Speaker 3: and find the wolf sleeping off his meal. But they
Speaker 3: see something moving and jiggling inside the wolf's belly, And
Speaker 3: then the text reads quote the mother goat sent the
Speaker 3: kid home and to fetch scissors and a needle and thread,
Speaker 3: and then she cut open the monster's paunch. She had
Speaker 3: scarcely made one cut before a little kid stuck its
Speaker 3: head out, and as she continued to cut one after
Speaker 3: the other. All six jumped out, and they were all
Speaker 3: still alive. They were not even hurt, for in his greed,
Speaker 3: the monster had swallowed them down hole. How happy they were.
Speaker 3: They hugged their dear mother and jumped about like a
Speaker 3: tailor on his wedding day. But the mother said, go
Speaker 3: now and look for some big stones. We will fill
Speaker 3: the godless beast's stomach with them while he is still asleep.
Speaker 3: So the kids go gather the stones, they bring him back.
Speaker 3: They put the stones in the wolf's belly, and then
Speaker 3: they sow him up again. And the wolf wakes up thirsty,
Speaker 3: and he decides, well, I'm going to go to a
Speaker 3: nearby well and get some water. But when he begins
Speaker 3: to walk, he cries out in pain. He cries out
Speaker 3: quote what rumbles and tumbles inside of me? I thought
Speaker 3: it was kids, but it stones that they be. And
Speaker 3: so the story finishes. Quote. When he got to the
Speaker 3: well and leaned over the water to drink, the heavy
Speaker 3: stones pulled him in and he drowned miserably. When the
Speaker 3: seven kids saw what had happened, they ran up and
Speaker 3: cried out, the wolf is dead. The wolf is dead,
Speaker 3: and with their mother. They danced for joy around about
Speaker 3: the well. So how much does this overlap with the
Speaker 3: plot of the movie. Uh, I would say medium moderately. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: in this movie they never cut the wolf open and
Speaker 3: fill him up with stones. But the major conflict of
Speaker 3: the film is the same. And I guess because the
Speaker 3: plot here is very loose, we should just sort of
Speaker 3: summarize up top and then we can go and fill
Speaker 3: in some texture when we talk about individual songs and scenes.
Speaker 3: But the general plot is that Mama Goat aka missus
Speaker 3: Rada lives in a house in the forest with her
Speaker 3: goat children. In this case, it's within a kind of
Speaker 3: animal village where one house is full of rabbit people,
Speaker 3: one house's sheep, one house is squirrels, and so forth,
Speaker 3: and there's also a donkey. And there is a pipe
Speaker 3: smoking wolf in this village named Titisuru who he lives
Speaker 3: in town, and he spends the first quarter of the
Speaker 3: movie telling Rada that he is going to eat her children,
Speaker 3: and she tells him no, and then they dance and
Speaker 3: make eyes at each other.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's a lot of like, no, for real, I'm
Speaker 2: going to eat your brats, like he calls them. Brats essentially,
Speaker 2: and he is pretty clear like I'm a predator there,
Speaker 2: baby goats, I am going to eat your children. And
Speaker 2: she's like, oh, no, you won't. But there's kind of
Speaker 2: a wink there.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And so in the movie, kind of like
Speaker 3: in the folk tale, there's a secret code that Mama
Speaker 3: Rada uses to enter the goat castle, but in the movie,
Speaker 3: it's a song. It's a song that Rada teaches her children,
Speaker 3: and she has to sing it note for note perfect
Speaker 3: to be granted access. And I'm sure anybody who's seen
Speaker 3: this movie will have this song burned in their brain forever.
Speaker 3: You hear it many many times, in both its correct
Speaker 3: form and in its incorrect form when when crudely attempted
Speaker 3: by the wolf and his companions, but he goes Mama's home.
Speaker 3: Now you can open the door, and it goes on
Speaker 3: with this whole thing about like I've brought you strawberries
Speaker 3: covered in honeydew and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: And so the idea is the kids will listen, is
Speaker 2: like that is that Mama, I don't know, let's hear yep,
Speaker 2: that's her. Her voice sounds perfect, it's beautiful. Then you
Speaker 2: open door and she comes in right now.
Speaker 3: Sue Ru spends much of the movie trying to learn
Speaker 3: to sing this song correctly. He's like outside the house
Speaker 3: eavesdropping and writing out sheet music quickly as he hears it.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah. So he spends a lot of time
Speaker 2: like workshopping at with his his buddies, the Donkey, the
Speaker 2: the What, the.
Speaker 3: The Lynx, the Lyne. Yeah.
Speaker 2: So they're all working on it, and at times it's just,
Speaker 2: you know, it's too it's too rock and roll. You know,
Speaker 2: he is a rock and roll wolf after all, So
Speaker 2: it takes him a while to really refine the performance
Speaker 2: to the point where he can attempt to pull off
Speaker 2: this this scheme.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Now, there's a subplot in the middle here where
Speaker 3: one of the Goat children, the older boy Mattei, wants
Speaker 3: to escape the house and go to the fair while
Speaker 3: mama is out, even though it's dangerous and the wolf
Speaker 3: is prowling around. So he runs out and then he
Speaker 3: gets into trouble and he gets pursued by the wolf
Speaker 3: and his allies. But that that's sort of a b
Speaker 3: plot in the middle of the movie. Eventually, the wolf
Speaker 3: and his goons kidnap a couple of the goat kids.
Speaker 3: And even though early on it was suggested that the
Speaker 3: wolf would eat the children, he doesn't eat them. It
Speaker 3: seems what he really wants is to hold them for
Speaker 3: ransom so that Mama Rada must pay him a bag
Speaker 3: of gold. He's like, give me the gold. He has
Speaker 3: this short speech about how much he wants gold. Of
Speaker 3: what use is gold to a wolf? I don't know,
Speaker 3: but he wants gold, gold, gold.
Speaker 2: Well, I think one of his cronies ask him, like,
Speaker 2: what are you gonna do with the gold, and he's like,
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do what everybody does with the gold, baby,
Speaker 2: which is spend it. But I mean, again, what's he
Speaker 2: gonna spend it on? I guess I don't know. Food.
Speaker 3: The wolf in the Brother's Grim story does buy something.
Speaker 3: Remember he goes and he buys chalk and then eats it.
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, so open question then yeah.
Speaker 3: So anyway, Yeah, So a couple of the goat children
Speaker 3: get kidnapped, but then Rada comes up with a plan
Speaker 3: to get her children back in revenge. So she first
Speaker 3: there's a lot of dancing, like ice skating and dancing
Speaker 3: around on the ice, and the whole village comes out
Speaker 3: to the frozen pond in the wintertime, and ice skates
Speaker 3: around and dances and stuff. And then Rada dances with
Speaker 3: the wolf and they're, you know, it's very flirty dancing.
Speaker 3: But then also he's like, give me the gold, and
Speaker 3: what the gold? And so she eventually uses what I
Speaker 3: don't know if it's actually a bag of gold, but
Speaker 3: it's something made to look like a bag of gold.
Speaker 3: She uses it as bait to trick him into falling
Speaker 3: into a trap that the villagers have made in the
Speaker 3: ice of the frozen pond. So the wolf falls into
Speaker 3: the water, and while he's drowning in the freezing water,
Speaker 3: his co conspirators again, the younger wolf, the Lynx, and
Speaker 3: the donkey, they sort of have a change of heart
Speaker 3: and they bring Rada's children back to her. And then
Speaker 3: mister Wolf is pulled from the water and allowed to live,
Speaker 3: and he promises he has a changed wolf, will he
Speaker 3: will never kidnap her children again, and everyone lives happily
Speaker 3: ever after.
Speaker 2: That's it, and that's how it goes down. Nobody is
Speaker 2: cut open, no stones are implanet in anybody's body, and
Speaker 2: everyone learns their lesson. But we cannot stress how much
Speaker 2: dancing and dare I say prancing occurs on the road?
Speaker 2: Did this conclusion?
Speaker 3: Oh? Unbelievable amounts of gambling and gyrating about Oh, And
Speaker 3: I haven't mentioned this anywhere else, so I guess I'll
Speaker 3: just throw it in here. I mentioned that the you know,
Speaker 3: the visual textures of the movie are good, like the
Speaker 3: costumes and the and the makeup and the sets and
Speaker 3: all that are great. But I just really want to
Speaker 3: emphasize again how much how much landscape texture there is
Speaker 3: in the village set, which is a great is a
Speaker 3: great compliment to the choreography and the dancing. So it's
Speaker 3: in this lovely natural setting in the forest, but there
Speaker 3: are just all these interesting little things for the dancers
Speaker 3: to kind of move around and react to, all these
Speaker 3: little pathways and gates and staircases and lap and railings
Speaker 3: and little bridges, and it's all very rustic and pretty,
Speaker 3: and it makes for a perfect landscape for these rambling
Speaker 3: dance numbers that lead the characters from one edge of
Speaker 3: the village to another.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, yeah, it really the environment feels very authentic, you know,
Speaker 2: like it's almost like they these actors, as these animals
Speaker 2: lived here for months or something leading up to the
Speaker 2: actual filming.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, you want to talk about the individual scenes
Speaker 3: and musical numbers.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's start with the beginning, because you know, Joe,
Speaker 2: they pull a reverse Holy Mountain on us here, which
Speaker 2: is kind of interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, So we start outside of the story with
Speaker 3: the credit sequence taking place over shots of the actors
Speaker 3: being introduced with credits as they get into costume and
Speaker 3: have their makeup applied. Interesting choice.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And for some reason for me, this really drove
Speaker 2: home the nineteen seventies musical quality. I don't know why.
Speaker 2: Maybe it's just because you're seeing, you know, guys and
Speaker 2: gals who are clearly denizens of the nineteen seventies, like
Speaker 2: in their casual clothing, being transformed into these timeless woodland creatures.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is a softening, kind of humanizing element to
Speaker 3: it because, for example, one of the things we see
Speaker 3: is the actor who plays the villain, who plays mister Wolf,
Speaker 3: is like sitting in a chair in his makeup chair,
Speaker 3: and the kids who play the goat children in the
Speaker 3: movie are like play They're like putting funny makeup on
Speaker 3: his face and they're all laughing about it. So it's like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: he's the bad guy in the movie, but in real
Speaker 3: life they're all friends.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's all in good fun. Children. Yeah, don't be
Speaker 2: stressed out by anything. You're about to see.
Speaker 3: Kind of interesting cinematography choice here in this scene where
Speaker 3: we're meeting all the characters is that most often sometimes
Speaker 3: we just get like a headshot where they smile at
Speaker 3: the camera, but more often we see performers making eye
Speaker 3: contact with the camera through a mirror, so the camera's
Speaker 3: over their shoulder and we're looking into their makeup mirror
Speaker 3: and connecting with them that way. Yeah. Yeah, Also, did
Speaker 3: you notice how in this part, basically everybody is smiling
Speaker 3: as they meet the camera except the actor who plays Donkey,
Speaker 3: who's just grimacing and looking like, you know, why go
Speaker 3: on with this masquerade of a life.
Speaker 2: Well, he's method, you know, he's Donkey from the get go.
Speaker 2: He showed up this morning Donkey before he even put
Speaker 2: the makeup.
Speaker 3: Or the ears on. He looks like he has just
Speaker 3: about had it with this job. Sick of playing Donkey. Okay,
Speaker 3: but let's go into the world. Now, we go into
Speaker 3: the forest, into the village of fantastic magical creatures. And
Speaker 3: what's our first song?
Speaker 2: Oh, the first one is I honestly don't remember what
Speaker 2: the song is, but this one is by a parrot
Speaker 2: and it's kind of an upbeat, prancing tune set to
Speaker 2: some furious It's kind of almost Caribbean drumming, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, this is the one that goes ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 3: So before the song even starts, I think one of
Speaker 3: the first things we see is like the squirrel lady,
Speaker 3: she's she's looking out at the road leading to the
Speaker 3: village and she screams like here he comes. And then
Speaker 3: mister Parrot, a twee voiced master of ceremonies type presence
Speaker 3: in a teal tuxedo jacket, a red cravat and a
Speaker 3: rainbow wig, is riding into town on this rag and
Speaker 3: bone shop velocipede, singing a song I had to. This
Speaker 3: is one of the many parts where when I went
Speaker 3: back and I listened to the lyrics more closely, I
Speaker 3: was like, wait, what is this about. It sounds like
Speaker 3: the song is about artifacts he has stolen from various
Speaker 3: places around the world. He says that he went to
Speaker 3: Tehran where he got a rock that shows the future,
Speaker 3: and from Bali he took something referred to as the
Speaker 3: ancient magic tree.
Speaker 2: Well, I've got news for mister Parrett. I feel like
Speaker 2: those artifacts and tales of their exploits are gonna be
Speaker 2: lost on this crowd because these animals are a little
Speaker 2: more down to earth in their yeah, their needs and aspirations.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think they would rather have like some cakes
Speaker 3: and stuff. Yeah, this is the Shire. In fact, this
Speaker 3: is exactly this is the shire. Because the other thing
Speaker 3: is the implication in this song is that everybody loves Parrot.
Speaker 3: And it's like when gandhlf arrives at the Shire in
Speaker 3: his cart, the children are all running around screeching with joy.
Speaker 3: Parrot here does not set off any fireworks, but he
Speaker 3: might as well. We also get several close up shots
Speaker 3: of the various like lady animals of the village watching
Speaker 3: Parrot's arrival with rapturous admiration, Like we see the lamb
Speaker 3: lady looking at him like what a hunk. But anyway,
Speaker 3: the whole number has this traveling medicine show quality to it.
Speaker 3: He he comes in on his velocipede cart and then
Speaker 3: they set up a kind of stage where he stands
Speaker 3: there singing to the crowd. And Parrot's arrival is presaging
Speaker 3: a fare that will be held I think the following day.
Speaker 2: Now, he doesn't particularly have any role in the plot.
Speaker 2: He's just here to facilitate dance numbers though, so unlike Gandalf.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, that's right. Anyway, while all this is
Speaker 3: going on, we also see another major character, the Wolf.
Speaker 3: He's up in his tower. I don't know what you
Speaker 3: would call this building he lives in, but he's in
Speaker 3: this building that's like got a view up and over
Speaker 3: everything else, and he's standing standing watching the celebrations suspiciously
Speaker 3: through a wooden spyglass up in his wolf tower. So
Speaker 3: he's there with his flowing mane of hair, a strong eyebrows,
Speaker 3: strong mustache. He makes an impression the first time you
Speaker 3: see him. And also he's keenly peering out at things
Speaker 3: going on. He has he has a predator's gaze. You know,
Speaker 3: he's ready. He's ready to eat some of the herbivores
Speaker 3: of the village. And Wolf begins to watch a single
Speaker 3: family among the crowd, that of mother Goat missus Rada
Speaker 3: and her children, who are on their way home. The
Speaker 3: children are begging to be taken to the upcoming fair,
Speaker 3: and this leads into the second song, which is performed
Speaker 3: by the wolf.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is a bold, sauntering number that it occupies
Speaker 2: that place where comedic brass and seductive brass meet. It's
Speaker 2: also it's based of his his allow me to introduce
Speaker 2: myself toun where he tells you who he is and
Speaker 2: what he's all about.
Speaker 3: This got funnier once again when I went and transcribed
Speaker 3: the lyrics. He's saying, how do you do? I'm Titisuru,
Speaker 3: friendliest wolf you've met. You'll hear the strangest things about me,
Speaker 3: for it's been said that I could be responsible for
Speaker 3: incidents unexplained. People do invent the oddest tales. That's not
Speaker 3: what I would put in my cover letter. The first
Speaker 3: thing you're hearing from him is people tell a little
Speaker 3: lies about me. M Yeah.
Speaker 2: People will try to pin various unsolved murders on me,
Speaker 2: but there's actually no connection. My alibi is pretty solid. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's not a convincing start.
Speaker 3: It's great when like, the first thing somebody says when
Speaker 3: you meet them is like, my haters are all lying.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Anyway, Titisuru goes out dancing through the middle of the
Speaker 3: village with his posse, which includes his nephew, the young Wolf,
Speaker 3: and as we mentioned earlier, also a lynx and the
Speaker 3: town donkey who is a kind of dolorous clown. And
Speaker 3: mister Wolf greets people in town and they mostly seem
Speaker 3: to regard him with naive trust. Is that how you
Speaker 3: took this in the beginning, Like everybody seems to be like, oh,
Speaker 3: mister Wolf, Yeah he's handsome, he's a nice guy. He says,
Speaker 3: he's nice.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. They have kind of this I don't know, Yeah,
Speaker 2: this kind of like passive response to the predator in
Speaker 2: their midst It's like, well, he's not attractively attacking anyone
Speaker 2: right now, so I guess we'll keep grazing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But then Wolf comes up. He squares off with
Speaker 3: Rada and her children. Rada, the way she reacts to
Speaker 3: him is complex. It's like she sees through this and
Speaker 3: she knows better than to trust him. So there's no
Speaker 3: she doesn't have the naive reaction that the other villagers have,
Speaker 3: Like she knows immediately what's up with this guy. She's
Speaker 3: too wise, and so she rebukes him. But there is
Speaker 3: also a constant, simmering underlying element of hubba hubbah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's basically like, I know you're a
Speaker 2: bad boy, but I kind of like bad boy. And
Speaker 2: that's basically that tension throughout the picture with the but
Speaker 2: with the added detail that said bad boy wants to
Speaker 2: kill and eat her children.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, so he explains in the song, well, he
Speaker 3: doesn't say that at first. Instead, at first he says,
Speaker 3: your children, uh, number one, they make too much noise
Speaker 3: and they tease me, and I can't tolerate that. So
Speaker 3: he says, this is your final warning, and also I
Speaker 3: am a wolf and my wolf instinct will not be suppressed.
Speaker 3: But then, almost as if to play down the danger,
Speaker 3: Sueru just kind of like dances off. He does like
Speaker 3: a little tap dance number with his goons, and he's
Speaker 3: you know, running around the village dancing. And while he's
Speaker 3: off with this guys, he starts singing about how ooh,
Speaker 3: of all the children I've ever seen, missus Rada's kids
Speaker 3: would be the finest cuisine. So he's like, I Am
Speaker 3: going to eat those goats.
Speaker 2: So this leads almost immediately into the third song I
Speaker 2: guess this is. This one's performed by Rada basically putting
Speaker 2: the wolf in his place, saying, let my children be Basically,
Speaker 2: we're gonna go into and out of a lot of
Speaker 2: songs in this picture at the drop of a hat,
Speaker 2: but sometimes just for like less than a minute even,
Speaker 2: and then sometimes for longer. You never know how long
Speaker 2: they're going to sing a particular song which keeps you
Speaker 2: on your feet. You know, you don't get that. It's
Speaker 2: easy to get worn out with musicals where it's like, oh,
Speaker 2: I hear another song coming on. Well, yeah, you're gonna
Speaker 2: get hit with him constantly, but some of them are
Speaker 2: very short. Okay, where are we in the plot to
Speaker 2: kidnap the Goat children?
Speaker 3: Well, I think there isn't a plot yet. We've just
Speaker 3: had the conflict between between Wolf and Rada, like they've
Speaker 3: had their square off. Its kind of flirting but also
Speaker 3: threatening each other. Rada is seeing through the Wolf's suave exterior,
Speaker 3: but she's wary of him, but she's also kind of
Speaker 3: into him, and so that's strange. But yeah, yeah, so
Speaker 3: so far, that's where we are. And here we get
Speaker 3: into a medley that was one of my favorite parts
Speaker 3: of the movie because it's just sort of a string
Speaker 3: of songs that are mostly sung by the bad guys
Speaker 3: but then interrupted by some good dance numbers by the
Speaker 3: good characters, but the string of songs by the Wolf's
Speaker 3: Gang goes on for like ten minutes, and it's just
Speaker 3: one wacky, hard hitting Tommy style rock opera song after another.
Speaker 3: And I was thinking about how, you know, sometimes people
Speaker 3: say that a Batman movie is really only as good
Speaker 3: as its villain, Like, you know, Batman's always you know,
Speaker 3: I don't want to discount differences, but Batman's always just
Speaker 3: sort of Batman. So it's really the villain that defines
Speaker 3: the film.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I mean I think that translates into musicals too.
Speaker 2: Like in Disney musicals, the villains always have the best songs.
Speaker 2: In Rocky horror, all the best songs are sung by
Speaker 2: the villains. I mean, I guess they're villains and so forth.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, if you're gonna have a musical film
Speaker 2: like this Phantom of the Opera, he's got all the
Speaker 2: great songs, obviously.
Speaker 3: I absolutely so. I was gonna say, I think the
Speaker 3: same thing is often true about musicals, musicals, and especially
Speaker 3: rock operas. The villains get the best songs, and so
Speaker 3: it's the villain songs that end up kind of sticking
Speaker 3: with you and defining how the musical feels, and that
Speaker 3: is definitely how I feel about this part of the movie.
Speaker 3: So the first tune in this Bad Guy medley is
Speaker 3: the Wolf's gang singing a song about the confrontation between
Speaker 3: Rada and the Wolf, and we see all like the
Speaker 3: townspeople running and hiding, slamming their doors shut after watching
Speaker 3: the altercation. The squirrely squirrel lady is very upset. You
Speaker 3: can see she's nervous. And it's this song. It's the
Speaker 3: one that goes where they're seeing like wahhoo t Tsuru's furious.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the one where they're like, mother, goat, Rada,
Speaker 2: better run away, that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, okay, yeah, Rada's future is dubious. It's sort
Speaker 3: of like like there has just been a rap battle
Speaker 3: and they're their guy lost, and so they're walking away
Speaker 3: being like, oh, next time it's gonna be it's gonna
Speaker 3: be really bad. We're gonna get you. But interestingly, while
Speaker 3: everybody else runs and hides, Rada and her children do
Speaker 3: not hide at all. They're not afraid, and they do
Speaker 3: a frenetic dance number on their front lawn. They're very happy.
Speaker 3: They're like sliding down this extremely splintery looking wooden plane
Speaker 3: and playing on all kinds stuffy. They go swinging, all
Speaker 3: seven of them on one wooden rope, swing all seven
Speaker 3: at the same time, and then they get on the
Speaker 3: rooftop sea saws, which god.
Speaker 2: What Yeah, Like I meant to go back and rewatch
Speaker 2: this sequence because my recollection is there's no way they
Speaker 2: faked this. I mean, there may not be actual children
Speaker 2: up there, but there might be, I don't know. It
Speaker 2: looks like a sizable building with kids on seesaws up there,
Speaker 2: you know, at the most extreme height, they're what twenty
Speaker 2: thirty feet off the ground or something like. It's intimidating.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's at the apex of the roof is the
Speaker 3: fulcrum of the teeter totter, and the kids are just
Speaker 3: going up and down. And maybe it's adult stunt performers,
Speaker 3: but it looks not faked.
Speaker 2: Yeah, does not look like a model.
Speaker 3: So Rata is not one of these safety obsessed helicopter parents.
Speaker 3: She's like children. We will now be playing on equipment
Speaker 3: that is illegal in most countries and all, so you're
Speaker 3: going to have to defend the goat house on your
Speaker 3: own against wolf attacks. While I am gone at the fair.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But anyway, while the children are playing, the bad guys
Speaker 3: kind of peep over the fence and watch the goats
Speaker 3: at play. And there is an interesting moment here where
Speaker 3: we see a lot of this throughout the film, where
Speaker 3: we get a close up on Donkey and at first
Speaker 3: he's smiling. It's like he's having a lot of fun
Speaker 3: watching the goats play. Oh, isn't it nice? And then
Speaker 3: suddenly his smile just fades. It melts into the saddest
Speaker 3: face you've ever seen yours if you will, Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 3: And so this is kind of establishing a theme upon
Speaker 3: rewatching for me. I didn't catch it as much the
Speaker 3: first time, but Donkey was really emerging as one of
Speaker 3: the most interesting and subtle characters. But from here we
Speaker 3: get into one of my favorite tracks, which is a
Speaker 3: rock number where the members of the Wolf's Gang introduce
Speaker 3: themselves and sing about their loyalty to Titisuru. I think
Speaker 3: it starts with kind of a chant where they say
Speaker 3: like one for all and all for Suru. So there's
Speaker 3: it's very top down, you know, leader oriented kind of
Speaker 3: friend group.
Speaker 2: Yes, he has big followers of Suuman here, you know,
Speaker 2: we have links Donkey and oh yeah, yeah, Little Bad Wolf.
Speaker 2: I believe he's referred to either one way or another
Speaker 2: in this bit the nephew, and yeah, there's a lot
Speaker 2: of snarling, moderate cartwheels added to the general prancing. And yeah,
Speaker 2: there's some great lyrics in here, like tears our occupation
Speaker 2: well into helping hand, into Suru's operation. So they're just
Speaker 2: all like trying to really get it out there that
Speaker 2: they're as close as friends, and they also throw in
Speaker 2: some added little tidbits like one of them's like, I've
Speaker 2: never read a book.
Speaker 3: Okay, Well, they're contrasting that little I think Little Bad
Speaker 3: Wolf says I've never read a book, because he's contrasting
Speaker 3: with the fact that Donkey says he does read books.
Speaker 2: M M yeah, I think they're getting a little off
Speaker 2: track in their commitment to speech here about Okay, so.
Speaker 3: We hear from the links he says, I'm Rascuel the Lynx.
Speaker 3: My missions are nocturnal. When your eyes start to blink,
Speaker 3: my role becomes essential. And then the donkeys verse goes,
Speaker 3: he haw he haw, he haw, I'm the donkey Patrica
Speaker 3: he haw he haw, I'm rather a good kicker, and
Speaker 3: so he's bragging about how good at kicking he is,
Speaker 3: but then he also mentions I like to read books,
Speaker 3: And so there's tension in the gang. Rassul the Lynx
Speaker 3: and Little Bad Wolf mock the Donkey first of all
Speaker 3: because they think he's he's delusional for thinking he's very
Speaker 3: strong and a good kicker. They don't agree, but they
Speaker 3: also mock him by saying I've never read a book.
Speaker 3: The implication is like, that's for nerds, and I'm not
Speaker 3: fully grasping the significance. I think there might be some
Speaker 3: kind of cultural archetype coding going on with Donkey, but
Speaker 3: like he's one of the bad guys, but he doesn't
Speaker 3: really fit in with them. The other bad guys mock him,
Speaker 3: and and there are scenes of him with conflicted emotions
Speaker 3: that the other bad guys don't show, or at least
Speaker 3: Little Bad Wolf and Links don't show. You get some
Speaker 3: some conflicted emotions from the main bad Wolf. But anyway,
Speaker 3: I just think it's interesting the way Donkeys is set
Speaker 3: apart from the other villains.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is something to contemplate. He Yeah, he seemed
Speaker 2: I don't know, like maybe we're really supposed to put
Speaker 2: ourselves in donkey's shoes.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: Now we eventually go back to the house here, right,
Speaker 2: And I want to point out that the inside of
Speaker 2: the goat household it looks like a cat cafe. If
Speaker 2: you've ever been to a cat cafe, that's kind of
Speaker 2: the vibe I'm getting here. Lots of little shelves and
Speaker 2: places for cats or I guess goats to walk around on.
Speaker 2: That would make sense, you know, goats like to be
Speaker 2: up high. And then they have like cool what hanging
Speaker 2: beds or loungers here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the the young goats sleep in these like pendulum beds.
Speaker 3: They're dangling from the ceiling like a I don't know,
Speaker 3: like a like a planter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they put a lot of thought at the end
Speaker 2: of this. I'm I'm actually a little bit reminded of
Speaker 2: the kids rooms in Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, you know,
Speaker 2: where they're like, what did the Martian children's bedrooms look like?
Speaker 2: How do martians sleep?
Speaker 3: And so forth. But this scene also has an interesting
Speaker 3: part where one of the kids asks Rada, why does
Speaker 3: the wolf want to take us away? Oh?
Speaker 2: Yeah, And the answer is, well, because he's lonely and childless,
Speaker 2: is an interesting way to view predation, but that's what
Speaker 2: she tells them.
Speaker 3: One of the children ask she says this, and one
Speaker 3: of the children says, is it wrong to be lonely?
Speaker 3: And Rada says, no, it just makes you feel bad.
Speaker 2: Maybe something's was lost in translation a bit into the
Speaker 2: English version.
Speaker 3: I don't know. Oh, but then after this we go
Speaker 3: straight into a psychedelic disco dance number by the Bad
Speaker 3: Guys who oh yeah, there's no singing. They're just like
Speaker 3: out in inside a five dimensional kaleidoscope doing some real
Speaker 3: like Saturday night fever move.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this is like the dark disco scene. And
Speaker 2: I was really hoping this would erupt into vocalizations as well,
Speaker 2: but it's just you know, darkness prancing. It's like a
Speaker 2: raven mordor or something. I'm not sure, but it's fun.
Speaker 3: I like it. In some parts of the choreography here
Speaker 3: reminded me of that Okay Go Treadmill video.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, they really get into it.
Speaker 3: They get some moods, but they're like standing out on
Speaker 3: some kind of bridge in the darkness, with like the
Speaker 3: night sky behind them, and sometimes there's this aurora in
Speaker 3: the sky and sometimes it looks like a giant fish
Speaker 3: pig face. But then here we go into a lullaby
Speaker 3: sung by Rada, which we sort of go around and
Speaker 3: see all the villagers going to sleep. I gotta say,
Speaker 3: I've been playing some of the music from this movie
Speaker 3: in my house and my toddler is obsessed with this
Speaker 3: lullaby song. She asked me to play it like ten
Speaker 3: times yesterday. It's the night night song to her, and
Speaker 3: she loves it.
Speaker 2: This is the You know, one of the great things
Speaker 2: about early parenthood is you get to choose what really
Speaker 2: obscure nonsense you inject into your child's life that will
Speaker 2: become a part of their wholesome recollection years later that
Speaker 2: no one else in their friend group will share. They'll
Speaker 2: be like, Hey, did you guys watch that weird Russo
Speaker 2: Frank Romanian family animal picture every holiday? And they're like, no,
Speaker 2: we have no idea what you're talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, out on the playground, you don't know the tickets
Speaker 3: Tickets song. But okay, yeah, So this is a lullaby.
Speaker 3: But there is an interesting moment here where the wolf
Speaker 3: comes in and sings along at the end of the song.
Speaker 3: So it's Rada singing to her children and She's like,
Speaker 3: close your eyes, I'm here beside you. And then suddenly
Speaker 3: the wolf is outside the house and he's like singing
Speaker 3: at Rada, And I thought this maybe is playing up
Speaker 3: on the idea that like, underneath his wickedness, he really
Speaker 3: is just lonely, like Rada was talking about. Maybe the
Speaker 3: subtext is that if he had someone to love, he
Speaker 3: wouldn't be trying to harm the goats, which plays directly
Speaker 3: against what he himself said, which is like, I have
Speaker 3: a wolf nature and it will not be suppressed.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I don't know. I also wasn't sure if we're
Speaker 2: supposed to think that she can hear him, and because
Speaker 2: she has kind of like a you know, winky smile
Speaker 2: thing at the end here, and I don't know if
Speaker 2: that's more of her like oh suru, or if I'm
Speaker 2: just reading into it because we have been spending so
Speaker 2: much time already with their sort of teasing predator prey relationship.
Speaker 3: Yeah, oh right.
Speaker 2: Then we get a song about equilibrium from the children
Speaker 2: where they're playing on a pair of enormous seesaws, and
Speaker 2: we see a lot of other children there in the scene,
Speaker 2: their sheep children of course, the squirrel children, Donkey grinning
Speaker 2: like an absolute maniac. Donkey, Lynx and Little Bad Wolf
Speaker 2: joining into the song. They dance and prance around. The
Speaker 2: dance becomes cocky and aggressive till finally what one of
Speaker 2: the kids has enough, maybe the oldest kid, and he
Speaker 2: starts riding Donkey around and then like somebody has come
Speaker 2: break it up.
Speaker 3: This is Matteia, the oldest goat son who will sneak
Speaker 3: out of the house later. You know he is up
Speaker 3: to mischief. But yeah, he rides Donkey around and I
Speaker 3: don't know, Donkey really gets put in his place.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, somebody they just send the ref end to
Speaker 2: break it out. The out of hand.
Speaker 3: Rada comes in. Rada always puts a stop to the nonsense.
Speaker 3: And then the next scene is we get one of
Speaker 3: the main themes of the movie, which is the song
Speaker 3: that Rada sings teaches her children in order for them
Speaker 3: to know it's her at the door and not someone else.
Speaker 3: So this is the Mommy's home. Now you can open
Speaker 3: the door and don't be afraid children anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it is a beautiful little number about stranger danger
Speaker 2: for latchkey kids. You know, it's like, don't open don't
Speaker 2: open that door for anybody, anybody except for me.
Speaker 3: Except for me. I'm here to protect you, right. So
Speaker 3: she sings the song, and meanwhile outside the wolf is
Speaker 3: listening and furiously scribbling notes on how the song so
Speaker 3: that he can get into the house when Ratta goes
Speaker 3: to the fair. So she goes off to the fair.
Speaker 3: What's going on at the fair?
Speaker 2: Oh, tickets is what's going on at That's the main
Speaker 2: thing I got. Because we run back, we meet parrot
Speaker 2: guy again, and we're in this fun house of mirrors.
Speaker 2: We're gonna spend a lot of time in this set,
Speaker 2: and it's pretty gorgeous. It feels like it feels like
Speaker 2: we're inside a disco ball, and there's, yeah, a lot
Speaker 2: of general discussion of tickets. I don't know if you
Speaker 2: were able to make sense of this when you went
Speaker 2: back through the lyrics, Joe.
Speaker 3: No, I did not understand at all. The parrot is
Speaker 3: like throwing little like ticker tape, you know, bits of
Speaker 3: you know, confetti. Basically, tickets are in the air, and
Speaker 3: he's standing in these mirrors with silver tinsel all around.
Speaker 3: He's still in his rainbow outfit. And the lyrics are
Speaker 3: like tickets to your life, tickets to find your Wife.
Speaker 3: I think maybe the idea is that, I don't know,
Speaker 3: it's some kind of commercialization or commodification, like is selling
Speaker 3: a kind of shallow promise of good fortune. But I
Speaker 3: don't know. Parrot is not really presented as a villain
Speaker 3: of the film. It's just kind of like, Oh, here's
Speaker 3: what's going on at the fair. There's some kind of
Speaker 3: there's some kind of nonsense happening.
Speaker 2: All right. Now, I have to point out that at
Speaker 2: this point the episode is probably getting a little long,
Speaker 2: and I feel like I could probably talk about each
Speaker 2: and every little musical number because I made notes about
Speaker 2: all the weird little things they threw, and like, suddenly
Speaker 2: there's a trampoline for the squirrels and I love it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: So I'm gonna let you drive here, Joe, and just
Speaker 2: I'm gonna follow you through your favorite moments of the
Speaker 2: rest of this film, and I'll jump in if I
Speaker 2: have some thoughts.
Speaker 3: Well, we've already talked about the general outline, so you
Speaker 3: know that the wolf is going to keep trying to
Speaker 3: sing the song and sneak into the house. He fails
Speaker 3: the first few times. We know that Matis sneaks out
Speaker 3: of the house he runs around outside, he gets chased
Speaker 3: by the bad guys. Of course, while we're here at
Speaker 3: the fair, some various things will happen. There's a bunch
Speaker 3: of just like songs and big ensemble numbers where everybody's singing.
Speaker 3: We get a ballet sequence where the people that you
Speaker 3: thought were spiders but I think are actually supposed to
Speaker 3: be sparrows. These are played by ballet dancers. I think
Speaker 3: these might be the Bolshoi Ballet or some Moscow based
Speaker 3: ballet dancers who do a very good but I don't know.
Speaker 3: Ballet might not exactly be my thing, but you can
Speaker 3: tell that they're great at what they do, and they
Speaker 3: do it in front of these very interesting painted backdrops.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, the effects are very cool here, like it's
Speaker 2: not just a performance of dance on stage, and we've
Speaker 2: been seeing a lot of actual dance performance, but here
Speaker 2: we have high level ballet with cool effects.
Speaker 3: And I think maybe in some parts of these songs
Speaker 3: they're like balancing on.
Speaker 2: Tethers or whatever you call that tetherwalking, or it's made
Speaker 2: to look like I couldn't tell if this is a fact,
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, at the Fair, there's more of a wolf following
Speaker 3: Rada around being like, hey, let's dance, and so first
Speaker 3: they don't dance, and then they do dance. But one
Speaker 3: thing we definitely should mention is the the Sheep and
Speaker 3: Donkey song.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is a mid movie romance between the two.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Would you characterize this song as like a seduction
Speaker 3: of Donkey by the Lamb character?
Speaker 2: I think so. I mean, he's into it, but it
Speaker 2: kind of comes out of nowhere, like I wasn't really
Speaker 2: thinking about Donkey's romantic prospects. And likewise, you know, Lamb
Speaker 2: is one of the many cute animal ladies in the film,
Speaker 2: but you know, she's very much been in the background
Speaker 2: and we're just like, oh, there's Lamb lady, you know,
Speaker 2: much like Squirrel Lady. You know she's there, But I
Speaker 2: didn't know that she was actually gonna do anything other
Speaker 2: than jump around and maybe do a trampoline flip.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was Why is Lamb so into Donkey?
Speaker 3: The framing implies that that Lamb is like the most
Speaker 3: eligible bachelorette in town, but so far, Donkey has been
Speaker 3: portrayed as a pitiable loser, like he is the outcast
Speaker 3: of the village's criminal gang, and yet Lamb is coming
Speaker 3: on to him very strong. So I don't know, like
Speaker 3: what what makes Donkey attractive to her? Maybe the fact
Speaker 3: that he reads books, Like is she into a a
Speaker 3: well read ass?
Speaker 2: Perhaps?
Speaker 3: Perhaps?
Speaker 2: Uh, you know, I want to I want to throw
Speaker 2: in here because I'm looking at one of the I'm
Speaker 2: looking at the still you have of lamb Lady and uh,
Speaker 2: the attention to the curling hair on her lamb ears
Speaker 2: on her sheep ears here absolutely top notch, like they
Speaker 2: would these costumes they do. You know, they're very much costumes.
Speaker 2: You're not going to believe that this is This is
Speaker 2: not like you know, werewolf an American werewolf in London
Speaker 2: here or anything when it comes to combining the animal
Speaker 2: in the human form. But on another level, it kind
Speaker 2: of is because at these ears. Look at the amount
Speaker 2: of tension they put into this hair. There's this is something,
Speaker 2: this is something. This is a key part of the
Speaker 2: movie's alchemy.
Speaker 3: I'm sure. I totally agree. Yeah, the costuming and the
Speaker 3: makeup effects that they are all so wonderful.
Speaker 2: Like you didn't have to do that for this film.
Speaker 2: But someone's like, no, no, no, these ears need to
Speaker 2: look percent authentic. They need to be warm to the
Speaker 2: touch Now.
Speaker 3: I think somewhere in here is we when we get
Speaker 3: that scene where the wolf is explaining to his goons
Speaker 3: that he no longer wants to eat the goat children.
Speaker 3: He wants gold. We've got to get gold, gold, you fools.
Speaker 3: It's very out of nowhere, but I like it. I
Speaker 3: wonder if the commercialism of the fair, like the whole
Speaker 3: tickets thing, inspires Wolf to switch his switch up, like
Speaker 3: his animal nature, his desire to just eat prey animals,
Speaker 3: and instead become a more civilized kind of villain that
Speaker 3: wants money. Do you think that? Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: I guess so. And it ties into a number we're
Speaker 2: gonna see later where we have this real after after
Speaker 2: the kidnapping has been carried out, Rada has this bit
Speaker 2: where she's like, you know, why is why is the
Speaker 2: world like this? Why do people want to hurt you?
Speaker 2: Why are they hurting you still? Why are they going
Speaker 2: to hurt you in the future? And it's got kind
Speaker 2: of this real, you know, dark somber number, But you
Speaker 2: know it, It makes sense then that you would have
Speaker 2: the wolf change his predatory approach from something that is
Speaker 2: purely an animal world activity into something that is you know,
Speaker 2: more akin to human crime.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, Okay, just a couple of little
Speaker 3: texture observations as we go along. There's one scene that is, uh,
Speaker 3: obviously this came earlier, but it feels straight out of
Speaker 3: the first Lord of the Rings film, where the you know,
Speaker 3: the mattee is hiding from the bad guys and they
Speaker 3: go looking out over the edge of the there's like
Speaker 3: an outcropping and they're looking out and he's hiding right
Speaker 3: underneath it.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, this and you know, and I think just
Speaker 2: must be an accident because I think the main framing
Speaker 2: of that that we're familiar with the Peter Jackson Lord
Speaker 2: of the Rings is based on a sequence in the
Speaker 2: seventy eight animated Lord of the Rings. But yeah, we were.
Speaker 3: Before that here, so this is seventy six.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so it's just I don't know, just just
Speaker 2: great framing. I don't know.
Speaker 3: There's a sad scene at some point where Rada comes
Speaker 3: home and she's been like out in the storm in
Speaker 3: the winter and she can't sing the song to get
Speaker 3: into the house. You know, she's trying to sing the
Speaker 3: password song, but her voice is all torn up, and.
Speaker 2: Yeah, she sounds like she's been hitting the bottle a
Speaker 2: little bit grief, and they're like, that's not mama. Mama's
Speaker 2: voice is good. I don't know what this thing is
Speaker 2: out there, howling in the darkness, but we're not opening
Speaker 2: the door.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And there's also a very sweet part where I
Speaker 3: think it's the oldest Goat daughter. The child sings a
Speaker 3: song for it's like an inversion of the mother's song
Speaker 3: to the children. She sings a song about mommy. It's
Speaker 3: extremely sweet.
Speaker 2: Oh and then at some point we get the song
Speaker 2: about modern decline. The children today are not the same.
Speaker 3: Yes, the same, not the same.
Speaker 2: Children today don't even know how to sit on a shovel.
Speaker 2: They don't say that, but it made me think of
Speaker 2: that moment and Jeff Ross.
Speaker 3: Now, there is a part here where Mattee has run
Speaker 3: out into the wilderness and gotten lost. He's like stranded
Speaker 3: on some kind of rocky spire in the middle of nothing,
Speaker 3: and the snow is falling, and it's like, what's going
Speaker 3: to happen to him? Well, what happens is we get
Speaker 3: one of the musical numbers from the Star Wars Holiday Special.
Speaker 3: It's like when the old Wookie puts the VR goggles
Speaker 3: on and he sees Diane Carroll's singing to him that
Speaker 3: kind of thing. Or no, it's those acrobats jumping around. Yes, yes,
Speaker 3: very holiday special stuff. But what we see instead is
Speaker 3: all these like silver ice skaters who are fairies. These
Speaker 3: represent the presence of the Winter Fairy, and they come
Speaker 3: and they help Mattei magically and send him back home.
Speaker 2: Yes, the time has come for every start of shine on.
Speaker 3: Where you are.
Speaker 2: The angels, the fairies, the stars, And I was looking
Speaker 2: this up. We have a lot of ice skating to
Speaker 2: round out the picture. And I believe this is a
Speaker 2: combination of the Moscow Circus and the Moscow Ice Ballet
Speaker 2: according to the credits.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so skipping ahead to the final confrontation, So of
Speaker 3: course the wolf does eventually kidnap the children. We have
Speaker 3: this big showdown in this frozen pond where everybody's ice skating,
Speaker 3: and as we said earlier, Rada outsmarts the wolf in
Speaker 3: the end and tricks him into falling in into the
Speaker 3: water through the ice and his lackeys give up and
Speaker 3: they're like, okay, here are your kids back, And in
Speaker 3: the end the wolf learns his lesson.
Speaker 2: That's right, everybody. Everybody comes around, but they really threaten
Speaker 2: him with cold drowning in the lake. Rod is like like,
Speaker 2: we'll just let you drown right here, wolf, unless you
Speaker 2: come around like your cronies just did. And they're like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we've changed, and he's like, you know, I've looked at
Speaker 2: deep inside myself and I realize I need to change
Speaker 2: as well. That's right, And he does, and.
Speaker 3: We get a kind of seasonal transition as well, don't we.
Speaker 3: That's right. That's right.
Speaker 2: There's this idea that it's like we're coming out of
Speaker 2: winter now it's becoming spring. So this alone, we alluded
Speaker 2: to this earlier Like this, I can see why this
Speaker 2: film would make so much sense as a holiday movie,
Speaker 2: even if there's nothing directly related to, you know, ideas
Speaker 2: of a Christian Christmas and so forth or Santa Claus. Like, no,
Speaker 2: it's still getting into that deep, primal idea of the
Speaker 2: winter holidays. Like what is the magic be it? You know,
Speaker 2: you know, capital M magic or lower case magic that
Speaker 2: is going to help us through to the spring.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but if the ending is a spring festival, I'm
Speaker 3: a little disappointed that we did not put the wolf
Speaker 3: in a Wickerman.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, if you had had like the ritual
Speaker 2: disembowment of the wolf, the removal of the children, the
Speaker 2: assertion of the stones, and the throwing of the wolf
Speaker 2: into the water, like I guess that would have this
Speaker 2: more of a wickerman asque ritualistic vision. And you know,
Speaker 2: I can very much envision a sort of I don't know,
Speaker 2: Midsommer esque horror movie in which someone visits this small
Speaker 2: town perhaps in perhaps in Romania, where hey, everyone is
Speaker 2: dressed as animals and they've made me wear this wolf
Speaker 2: hat for some reason, and what is this big, big
Speaker 2: festival that I've been invited to, and you know it's
Speaker 2: going to have absolutely horrifying results.
Speaker 3: Christopher Lee in a big wig with pigtails?
Speaker 2: Who would Christopher Lee? Would Christopher Lee be Donkey in this?
Speaker 3: Oh no, I think Christopher Lee would be the wolf
Speaker 3: of course.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so he would get sacrificed.
Speaker 3: Well. Spoilers for The Wickerman if you haven't seen that.
Speaker 3: I mean, it's an old movie, but it is great
Speaker 3: to see it without spoilers if you get a chance.
Speaker 3: But here they come at the end of The Wickerman.
Speaker 3: You know, the inspector what he yells at Christopher lee Is.
Speaker 3: He says, it's you know, this is not going to
Speaker 3: save your crops, and when it doesn't work, next year,
Speaker 3: they'll put you in this thing.
Speaker 2: That's right. I forget. It's been a long time since
Speaker 2: I've seen it. I forgot about that twist. Yeah, but
Speaker 2: it is worth noting that. Yeah, film like this, as
Speaker 2: wholesome as it is, it's really only two or three
Speaker 2: degrees removed from Full Car. So that's one of its charms.
Speaker 3: So that is Mama aka rock and roll Wolf. I
Speaker 3: did not know how much I needed this in my life,
Speaker 3: but I love this movie.
Speaker 2: A film that I feel just inevitably spread the seeds
Speaker 2: of furry fandom throughout throughout Europe.
Speaker 3: To be clear, that's not the appeal for me. I'm
Speaker 3: not judging, no judgment there, no, no, no, that's that's
Speaker 3: not what I'm saying. But I think it has appeal
Speaker 3: beyond that as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this is a film that can be enjoyed
Speaker 2: on multiple levels and is and is very very kid friendly.
Speaker 2: All right, Well, we're gonna go ahead and close out
Speaker 2: this episode this Yeah, I get this was a holiday episode.
Speaker 2: We'll go ahead and make it official of Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: Just a reminder, let's see if you enjoy our Weird
Speaker 2: House Cinema episodes. These are curved Friday and the Stuff
Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind podcast feed primarily science and culture,
Speaker 2: but on Fridays we set most of that aside to
Speaker 2: really just dig into a weird film. And if you
Speaker 2: want to see a list of all the movies we've
Speaker 2: covered so far, go over to letterbox dot com. You
Speaker 2: know letterboxed. Our user name there is weird House, and
Speaker 2: we have a nice, big old episode list of everything
Speaker 2: we've covered so far, and sometimes there's a peak ahead
Speaker 2: at what's coming up next. There's currently a peak ahead
Speaker 2: at what's coming up next and it is another technically
Speaker 2: u technically a holiday film, So to go check that
Speaker 2: out if you're if you were interested, and likewise, if
Speaker 2: you were on the Instagram, we're on there as stbym podcast.
Speaker 2: That's our that's our main account, that's the one that
Speaker 2: gets up updated frequently. Uh. You can follow us there
Speaker 2: and keep an eye on what's coming up on the
Speaker 2: the core episodes, but also what's happening in Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer JJ Posway.
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Speaker 3: with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest
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