The Kingdom of False Mirrors

Although "Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors" is transparently Soviet propaganda, the mirror motif is intriguing and potentially undermining of its own message. And while one might rightly expect such a fairy tale clearly inspired by Lewis Carroll's "Through the Looking Glass" to be utterly contrariwise to that book's brilliance, there is some cleverness here. Sure, the breaking of the fourth wall to advise one to "look at yourself with other people's eyes" is blatant collectivist lecturing, the children break into patriotic song at the end, and one of the girls even proclaims when asked from whence she came, "From the best country. There's no country better in the world!" As nauseating as all of that is, the production design isn't bad, albeit childish. Moreover, when the blonde girl, like Alice, follows her cat into the mirror, she meets her own reflection (as played by real twins). Everyone from this looking-glass land has a name that spells another word backwards. The twins, for example, are called Olya and Yalo, or the king is revealed to be the pesky parrot from the world outside the mirror when his name is reversed. The wordplay doesn't get any more clever than that, let alone does it come near approaching Carroll's wit, but in addition to all these doppelgängers and semordnilaps, there's something to the crooked-mirrors business, including as it relates to cinema.

Indeed, the picture begins with a film-within-the-film (a foreign, Italian one, "Abracadabra" (1952)). We don't see the actual film, although many of the town's children do despite a sign stating that no one under 16 is to be admitted. This recalls the beginning of "Alice in Wonderland," with the reading and complaint of books without pictures or conversations. Moreover, film is already strongly associative with mirrors, and their placement beside each other here only suggests that the filmmakers understand that and leverage it. In the fairy tale, there are the crooked mirrors that distort reality and straight ones whereby people see the truth, but the film never really exits the fantasy. Even in the land outside of the mirror, cats and jars of jam move backwards in time and a character makes an address directly to the camera. In its entirety, the film itself is a kingdom of crooked mirrors. The outward politics of it, of submitting to the conformity of others' "eyes," is quite stupid, but the inward reflexivity of a film about films as metaphorical mirrors is rather intelligent. It's actually about examining oneself by looking within--not from without.

Well, I watched this movie many times so I think I can better explain what it is all about. Olya the girl in the beginning of the movie features her personal weaknesses, or bad habits, or let's call it sins. She is craving for grandma's jam so much, that she discards grandma's word no to touch the jam, and breaks the can as she tries to eat some. Also Olya is recreant, lazy, irresponsible, sweet-tooth to the extent of forgetting about more important things. In other words Olya features a number of bad habits typical for children of her age. And through possession of these bad habits she becomes attracted to the fairy-tale surreal world of "Kingdom of crooked mirrors" which in fact is some kind of anti-world where all inhabitants bear reversed names to be read backwards to understand the true nature of the character. The kingdom is ruled by bizarre and evil characters featuring different animals like Parrot, Adder, Falcon, Toad (all shall be read backwards), and in fact represent a fake and gullish monarch Parrot, and three ruthless, cunning and power loathing tycoons: Toad, Adder and Falcon, who really rule the Kingdom. Played by people dressed and made up accordingly. In order to cement their power over the Kingdom they lean upon what probably should be described as total and systematic lying, or people's mass misinformation, by producing and disseminating only crooked mirrors. For this end they arrested the mirror-maker Friend who refused to produce crooked mirrors. So the CMK world represents where do Olya's weaknesses or bad habits would finally take her if not eradicated timely and properly. During her trip in the Kingdom Olya is accompanied by her mirror twin Yalio, who has no bad habits, but acts accordingly to her age. The main goal is to free the mirror-maker Friend from the Death Tower, which means the end of the Kingdom of Crooked mirrors. Olya has to overcome her own weaknesses and bad habits on her way to the goal, otherwise the ruling of Adder, Falcon, and Toad will never end. It is important to understand that in the USSR production of movies was controlled by Art councils, so the final product is kinda a balance between the movie director and Art council, therefore something resembling propaganda can sometimes be expected. But if you understand the entire story and the plot, you will see that Kingdom is a materialization of one's bad habits taken to the logical absolute to show to kids how important is to take an active and firm position in life and to stick to the truth, that in adult life you will have to take an active position, you will have to distinguish your friends from enemies, and you will have to act accordingly. Well, from the point of view of Adder, Falcon, and Toad this must be a very dangerous propaganda.

As some other reviewers have noted, WORLD OF CROOKED MIRRORS is a delightfully old-fashioned Russian fairy tale put on film. It's a children's fantasy heavily indebted to the likes of ALICE IN WONDERLAND, telling of a young and innocent girl who climbs through a mirror and finds herself transported to a fantastic world that has been corrupted by evil reflections. Most of the film concentrates on having fun with backwards characters and names.

The dated nature of this production gives it the quality of an old pantomime and that's not helped by the garish costumes and over-saturated colours of the production. However, at the same time, these things are strengths when it comes to WORLD OF CROOKED MIRRORS. The film has a distinctive and surreal look with some parts that would be more than frightening for a watching child spoon-fed on the safe world of Disney. The special effects are quaint rather than elaborate and lovers of the bizarre will be in their element.

The Kingdom of Crooked Mirrors uses the rather over-used mirror portal to a different world, but adds it's own idea to it with using it to show the other side of the human character. Furthermore it gives children a simple insight into the backstabby ways of politics too.

Obviously there will always be some little plot holes in a movie like this, or other story related things that could've done with a little more explanation, but overall it's a movie with a very nice flow to it that keeps you entertained until the end. And that, compared to similar movies from the same era, features a surprisingly low amount of in-the-face soviet propaganda.

Certain films leave a lasting impression, even though you cannot explain why. This film is dated and the quality of the special effects is questionable. Nonetheless, this movie has a lot of charm. It is actually quite exciting (my little cousins love it) and fun to watch.