Mavka. The Forest Song

Watched this cartoon in the cinema in Odesa. The impressions are great, beautiful graphics, a wonderful story based on ukrainian legends, cool songs. I really liked how the cartoon characters were drawn, the characters are very beautiful, the scenery is mesmerizing, the nature is incredible! Very funny jokes, several times we couldn't hold back and laughed for the whole hall. It's nice to hear the voices of ukrainian stars. In a word, my daughter was impressed! I recommend watch this cartoon, if you want to have a good time with your child, get aesthetic pleasure and touch to ukrainian legends and folklore.

This picture is a work of art in the field of animation. The team worked on the cartoon for about five years, which passed in vain. As a result, we have a quality Ukrainian product that can compete with the outstanding films of famous filmmakers. The voice actors were chosen very well, they seem to live the lives of their animated characters. And it is very nice to know that the basis of such a beautiful cartoon is the literary work of the Ukrainian writer Lesya Ukrainka. I am very happy and very proud that my country has such talented people who can satisfy my aesthetic needs as a film lover.

I am very very happy it's finally available to see. More than 7 years of work by animagrad is huge time and financial investment

It's amazing cartoon for babies.

However, by being adult and knowing the book, I have been expected more dynamics, much more energy, and main heroes appearance in absolutely different way, same as behavior, moves and of course different dramatic ending.

Book by Lesya Ukrainka is incredible rich and emotional, and unfortunately I could not feel anything even close related to the book, it s just a new cartoon that is good but about different mavka and different story.

But I think that it is also big success. Thank you for film! Hope for a new ones soon by animagrad and ukrainian animators. The more products will be done, more experience will bring better results..

Foreign viewers, fans of fantasy, may involuntarily compare this cartoon with Princess Mononoke, but all the responsibility here lies solely with the screenwriters, who probably wanted to add or even replace the depressive texts of the Ukrainian poetess with a more joyful and childlike naivety, where good triumphs over evil, and there is a happy ending at the end of the movie. The cartoon is really high-quality and interesting for both children and adults. I would like to single out interesting secondary characters, such as Frol, Erek and Derek (which are very reminiscent of the Klitschko brothers) , and the forest character Hook, and of course the forest naiads. Musical compositions performed by Dakha Brakha (as well as their cartoon characters), Khrystyna Soloviy and Artem Pyvovarov fit very harmoniously into the feature film. It is very pleasant that animated films based on the works of Ukrainian poets, poetesses,writers began to appear on the big screens.

To start, I want to say that I'm from outside of the Ukraine, I know nothing about it or its culture, and I have no children. So I'm purely reviewing this with an outsiders perspective, compared with many of the other reviews so far.

Funnily enough, I found out about this movie just from seeing the poster. I LOVE all things nature and green, so I looked up the trailer, and it reminded me a lot of my favourite Disney movie 'Tangled' in many ways. So I decided to watch it. I knew nothing of the story or culture it was based on. I just thought 'Forest theme = Yes' and 'Tangled Vibes = Yes'. And I have to say, I really loved this movie.

It's not perfect by any means. There were a few moments I felt were a bit childish, but... It's a kids movie so I can't really fault it for that. Some of the dialogue is a bit clunky, and the editing and placement of scenes sometimes doesn't quite fit. The story is quite thin too. Also, the animation isn't going to be as good as that from the major studios, as its a low budget movie.

And yet, I thoroughly enjoyed this movie: Everything about it. I enjoyed the humorous moments, the weird and over the top characters. The scenery was GORGEOUS, and I just couldn't help but have a smile on my face a lot of the time. The music was beautiful. And I LOVED the design of Mavka. Considering this wasn't a big budget movie, the animation was incredible too.

I think there's a few things mentioned above that should go against it, but they don't. Because it's just too darn charming. I love this movie and I'd definitely watch it again.