The long-lost Lord of the Rings adaptation from Soviet Russia is a wonderful fever dream

You may think you are familiar with The Lord of the rings, but nothing can really prepare you for an adaptation of JRR Tolkien’s classic fantasy text made in the Soviet Union.

The film, made for TV, was first broadcast on Leningrad Television in 1991 and is thought to have been lost, as reported for the first time. The guardian. But the station’s successor, 5TV, recently dug up a copy from its archives and uploaded the entire work in two parts to YouTube.

With a duration of approximately 1 hour and 50 minutes, this adaptation focuses only on the first book of Tolkein’s trilogy, The community of the ring, and is a riot of special effects with a low budget, bizarre camera work and Soviet mood music.

Instead of the epic Hollywood fantasy that gripped Peter Jackson so well, this adaptation feels like a strange fairy tale told by a pipe-smoking madman in the woods. In other words: it captures a completely legal aspect of The Lord of the Rings, just not one we are necessarily used to.

If you do not have time to look at the whole matter, here are a few moments, as identified by YouTube user Chris Staecker in two comments, helpful and time-consuming:

• The opening series. With music composed by Andrei Romanov of the Russian rock group Aquarium, an incredibly vague shot of the One Ring, and snippets of Nazgûl riding through the snow.

• Sméagol fights Déagol, claims the One Ring and changes into Gollum. For the Soviet adaptation, there is nothing of the ‘slow transformation into a horrible shadow of his former self’ for Sméagol. No: he puts on the ring and suddenly he’s a misty green skin, rogue hands. And why exactly does the choir go over and over in the background “rrrrrr”? This, my friend, is a little thing called atmosphere.

• The hobbits set off on their adventure. If it looks a bit behind the scenes from a theater group from the nineties, then so be it. Where does the sled come from? Why is that one hobbit arguing with a mouth full of food? Who gives a dime. Also jump forward to see them trapped in the Old Forest.

• This is old Tom Bombadil, that cheerful guy! Here he is: one of the strangest of Tolkien’s characters, a mysterious figure who may be god, and who is left out of Peter Jackson’s adaptation because he’s extraordinarily on the plot. He can certainly be removed from the story without much damage, but it’s still a joy to see him here with his wife Goldberry.

• Frodo meets Aragorn at The Prancing Pony. As Staecker notes, the creators at this point stopped making the hobbits look smaller than the other characters. Soviet Aragorn certainly has less sexy mystique than Viggo Mortensen, but who does not.

• The board of Elrond. It feels more like a scene from one of Shakespeare’s history pieces than the lush elegance of Jackson’s Rivendell, but it does the job. Jump forward to see Saruman Gandalf warn of the coming army, beautifully rendered like little dudes in horned helmets floating under nothing on the screen.

• Veg orke in Moria. Orcs here are less monstrous creatures and more just ‘some guys I think.’ What lacks special effects is more than made up for with shaky camera work. Jump forward to see them cross the Khazad-dum bridge, and Gandalf is dead, I think?

• Enter Galadriel and the magic … of dance. This is almost how I remember this scene from the books. Elves are immortal and live forever in strange enclaves. That means you are basically a cult. The hobbits, meanwhile, are amazed at how good they are at dancing and are then intoxicated. Jump a few minutes ahead and you can see Galadriel being tempted by the One Ring.

• Frodo breaks an apple in two with his hands! No, I know this scene is a bit boring otherwise and is mainly about Boromir being weird and clingy, but the apple thing is still cool. Have you ever tried to do this? It’s damn hard.

• Frodo and Sam do it for themselves. All others are damaged by power: only friendship remains! I absolutely like the ending here, especially the music choice. This is really what The Lord of the Rings go from heart: just guys who are dudes.

And that’s it! What’s really great to consider is that this adaptation was also aired just a decade before the first of Peter Jackson’s instant trilogy. If the Soviet Union had survived just a little longer, we would have similar versions of The two towers and The return of the king.