ILYA MUROMETS (1956)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, sociological*

Though I've assigned the functions of "the metaphysical" and "the sociological" to this film, the sociological discourse in ILYA MUROMETS actually drags the story down. Only the loose metaphysical discourse gives the film any mythic stature.

ILYA-- distributed and edited in an English-language version as THE SWORD AND THE DRAGON-- was fortunately available via streaming in its original form, as structured by the esteemed Russian director Aleksandr Ptushko. ILYA was completed about four years after Ptushko's SADKO, which I have not seen in its original form, but only in the truncated English version known as THE MAGIC VOYAGE OF SINBAD. Some critics celebrate SADKO as Ptushko's first major work, and the 1959 fantasy that followed, 1959's SAMPO, as an equal accomplishment. But I tend to doubt ILYA sustains the same critical approval.

One critique asserted that the legend of the famed Russian hero Ilya Muromets presented difficulties for the filmmakers because most of the original myth-hero's adventures were episodic in nature. However, the KALEVALA, an epic compiled from many short and sometimes logically challenged stories, was Ptushko's source for SAMPO, and he and his writers were able to make a coherent narrative there.

I believe ILYA was compromised between a desire to show the Russian champion in two contrary modes. In two scenes, he fights with supernatural evils-- a marauding wind demon, a three-headed dragon. And yet the same hero is meant to bring together fractious Russian tribes to repel a quasi-historical enemy, evil Asian soldiers called "Tugars" who are implicitly stand-ins for the Mongolian tribes who once threatened Russian borders. The latter mode gets the most screen-time, and sometimes the story reminded me less of a myth-story and more of a realistic history-epic like Eisenstein's 1938 ALEXANDER NEVSKY.

There are other, very brief hints of the world of myth behind the Ilya persona. Ilya (Boris Andreyev), though a big hulking fellow, has apparently been lame all his life, unable to prevent his fiancee from being abducted by Tugars (though she isn't really mentioned that much). Then some pilgrims, presumably Orthodox Christians, visit Ilya's village. They just came from meeting a older myth-hero, who gave the pilgrims his magical sword before he turned into a great mountain. The travelers not only present the sword to Ilya, they also happen to have with them a serum that restores the big man's mobility. Ilya says bye to his parents and takes up the mantle of defending Russia from its enemies.

Ilya's conquest of a nasty wind demon impresses the ruling Prince Vladimir, and the hero follows that up by embarrassing the envoys of Tugar lord Kalin. Later Ilya finds and liberates his fiancee Vassilissa, taking her home and marrying her. At some point Ilya puts a bun in his wife's oven and then leaves to go fight the Tugars some more. 

However, Ilya's fame earns him enemies at the Russian court, and the hero spends ten years in prison. During that time the Tugars capture both Vassilissa and her son "Little Falcon," and they raise the boy to think he's a Tugar and that he must fight the evil Russians. Later Ilya is freed and he returns to the fray. The Tugars send the hero's own son out to battle Ilya. Fortunately, Little Falcon wears a ring that allows Ilya to recognize him before either of the powerful warriors is slain, and together they rescue Vassilissa.

The film then ramps up to a big pitched battle between Russians and Tugars. Somehow the Tugars summon a three-headed, fire-breathing dragon to fight on their side, but Ilya and his son destroy the monster. The chieftain Kalin perishes and the Russian people are saved.

All the scenes of court intrigue drag, whatever their purpose in depicting "the enemy within." There's no dramatic arc as such, so Ilya and all of his support-characters remain flat and uninteresting, I couldn't tell if Boris Andreyev could act, but for this film he's not called upon anything but to be a really big tough guy, rather on the level of the Lou Ferrigno Hercules. So this effort by the premiere representative of Russian fantasy-cinema does not register as any sort of neglected classic.