Michael's Christmas Movie Guide: The Night Before Christmas (Noch pered Rozhdestvom) (1951)

The Night Before Christmas was made for  Soyuzmultfilm, probably the most important Russian Animation studio, which has produced The Snow Queen, The Humpbacked Horse, and Nu, Pogodi!. It was directed and written by the Brumberg sisters (Valentina and Zinaida), who have been called the Grandmothers of Russian animation, and had directed the films The Lost Letter and It Was I Who Drew the Little Man.
This film is an example of the Socialist Realist movement in Russian Animation at this time. This movement was heavily inspired by both Disney animation of 1930's and 40's, and Socialist Realist painting style. This movement was characterized by realistic animation and folk-lore. It is also represented by heavy rotoscoping (tracing over live action film) which is very prevalent in this movie.
This film is not based off the popular poem, but rather Nikolai Gogol's story. So there is no sign of Santa Claus here. The story instead focuses on a blacksmith who wishes to win the love of a beautiful woman. To do this he rides on the devil's back to get her a pair of slippers for Christmas.
This movie is very charming. The backgrounds are downright amazing, The story is very good. The characters all quite likable, if underdeveloped. The animation of the characters is stiff at times, but still works quite well. While the rotoscoping is obvious and kind of dates the film, it still works just fine. The character designs are quite well done. However most of all this is a movie just filled with wonder, and is quite a joy to watch. While it falls short of the Disney films that inspired this movement, it is still very good, and highly recommended.

This movie can be found on YouTube.

















-Michael J. Ruhland