To dream of happy music

by Petar PLAMENOV

The Nutcracker 3D
Andrey Konchalovsky

The ambitious adaptation of the dark tale by E.T.A. Hoffmann is set to the music of Tchaikovsky, but is full of visual and vocal surprises. Some of Hollywood’s best pros have worked on the Nutcracker in 3D, including Oscar-winning British lyricist Tim Rice, whose credits include The Lion King; Evita and Jesus Christ Superstar; executive producer Moritz Borman, who worked on The Life of David Gale and Terminator 3; while special effects were created by Nicholas Brooks (What Dreams May Come) and John Stephenson (101 Dalmatians).

Konchalovsky's 3D version of The Nutcracker, starring Elle Fanning and John Turturro, opened in the US before Christmas and was even more viciously attacked by American critics. "The film cost $ 90m and has yet to gross $ 300,000 worldwide, making it perhaps the biggest flop of all time," The Huffington Post suggested. Konchalovsky admits he was "astonished by the venom" in the reviews, especially that of Roger Ebert, who seemed appalled that the rats wore "fascistic uniforms" and that a film aimed at kids made reference to the Holocaust.



The Nutcracker in 3D is one of those rare holiday movies that may send children screaming under their seats," he wrote. The director argues that these critics didn't realise that ETA Hoffman's original story, "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King", was itself dark - they were more used to the Tchaikovsky music than the source material.

Konchalovsky said that, although the American public knows The Nutcracker, it is the legendary ballet – highly popular in America – they are used to, not a movie. On top of this, another problem appeared to be the story itself. The Nutcracker, based on The Nutcracker and the Mouse King short novel, written by the gloomy German writer of fantasy bordering with horror, Hoffmann, is not as plain and simple as some Americans like it. Set in the 1920s in Vienna, it revolves around a charming courageous girl and her truly special beloved doll, once coming to life and facing the dangerous Rat King. Of course, it is a fairytale, but with a serious twist and a lot of curious allusions.



Although The Nutcracker in 3D is awash with visual tricks of the trade, the film’s director was quoted as saying that “the most precious special effect is human feeling.” Konchalovsky explained, he measures the success of his work by whether he has managed to express this emotion or not. “I’ve made all my films sincerely,” he summed up. “The challenge was to create a world in which fantasy would intertwine with reality the way it always happens with children. Toys wake up children’s imagination. It also happened to us when we got hold of unimaginable technical advances and decided to let our fantasy take flight,” he enthused.



Konchalovsky is best known in the East as an insightful filmmaker, and the West for his Hollywood movies, such as Runaway Train, starring Jon Voight, and Tango and Cash, with Sylvester Stallone and Kurt Russell, but he has impeccable Russian establishment credentials too. His father Sergei Mikhalkov (1913-2009) wrote the country's national anthem and was decorated by Putin with the Order for Service to the Fatherland 2nd Class in 2003.

He is very distantly related to Leo Tolstoy. Not that this means he is a fervent believer in the new Russia. Ask him about the imprisoned Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, who recently received a new 14-year sentence for embezzlement and money laundering, and Konchalovsky declares the oligarch "should not be in jail," adding that if Khodorkovsky is behind bars, there are others who should be there with him.

Konchalovsky, who moved to the US in 1980, has experience of dealing with Soviet-era censors, and of working within the Hollywood system. He had ferocious battles in both places. "In an ideological censorship state, you know what you cannot touch and the rest is completely up to you. You can fool the state till the stage the film is made. That means the film is made and then it is maybe banned - but you made it! " On the differences between working in the two film cultures, he says: "Let's put it this way - it's much more difficult to fool certain producers than it is to fool the state."

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