Poruchik Kizhe

I thought this was lost but a watchable copy of the complete film can be found on Google Video. At last you can see how Prokofiev's music fits in. It's a bizarre film, with exaggerated Russian comic acting, but quite stylish. The score is, of course first rate and and comes over well even on a fairly poor copy.

The famous Troika appears as a song during chaotic night time ride and the romance is sung as a solo with harp accompaniment.

On the whole the sound is as goo as most prints of Alexandeer Nevsky that I have seen - though i await a restored version from Ruscico - the Russian Cinema Council.

I hope they do a restored version of this forgotten classic.

Ever wonder where that episode, "Tuttle," came from in the middle of the first season of M*A*S*H? Well now the cat's out of the bag: they got it from this Soviet film, a satire on how dumb the Tsar is, due to the slip of a pen (rendering the phrase "the Lieutenants, though ..." into "Lieutenant Kizhe" which has no meaning) and nobody being honest or gutsy enough to contradict him and just tell him the truth -- Kizhe doesn't exist and never did. So they make up an imaginary life for him and eventually kill him off. And 40 years later, David Ketchum and Bruce Shelly borrowed this zany plot and gave us essentially the same story, only on the other side of what had become the Cold War, proving that people in high positions can be equally dumb no matter what their loyalties may be!

I went to see this film out of curiosity, and to settle an argument. The film is now best known from the suite of music Sergei Prokofiev extracted from his incidental music to the film, the Troika movement even turning up in pop arrangements. The general outline of the plot is well known from the sleeve notes on various recordings. A clerk accidentally generates a non-existent Lieutenant Kizhe in a list to be presented to the tsar. The tsar is interested in this person, and rather than tell him he doesn't exist, the courtiers and officers maintain the pretence that he is real. Kizhe is exiled to Siberia, recalled, promoted, married, promoted again, dies, is given a state funeral, revealed as an embezzler and posthumously demoted to the ranks.

I had heard conflicting stories about how the clerk invented Kizhe, involving ink blots and sneezes, but I'd heard the film was lost, so there was no way to find out what happens. Then the film turned up at the Barbican in London as part of their Prokofiev festival. For the record, it turned out that all that happens is that the clerk confuses two words whilst writing an order and turns Kuzhe into Kizhe. As the tsar is in a hurry to see the order, there's no time to correct the mistake.

Having gone expecting an historical curiosity, I was pleasantly surprised. The film is very funny, and the audience, myself included, laughed continuously. Although most of it is filmed straight, set mostly in the palace, there are a few "trick" shots where multiple images appear on the screen. For instance, the tsar's army is represented by a small group, repeated across the screen. Four identical guards perform perfect drill in perfect unison. Two identical servants scrub the floor.

One slight drawback was it was very difficult to work out who everyone was. There were two women who might have been the tsar's daughters, or a daughter and a servant or something else. And very few people were named. But all in all, an enjoyable film and I'm surprised it's not seen more often.

It is good to hear that this film exists. Do you know if this film is available to the public?

I am sure there is a tremendous interest here in the United States in seeing it. The Lieutenant Kije Suite is very popular here. I know that I, for one, have been dying to see this film almost all of my life. The story about antics pertaining to maintaining this fictitious personage -- at least what I heard of it through commentary accompanying the Suite -- sounds fascinating.

I really hope that the film is or becomes available. English subtitles would be nice for those who do not know Russian, but that can be worked around.

Lieutenant Kije fan

Outside Russia "Lieutenant Kizhe" is known chiefly as the source of Serge Prokofiev's "Lieutenant Kizhe Suite", which he based upon the original score that he wrote for this film. That's unfortunate because this move is a very funny satirical farce about the unexpected consequences of a typographical error and deserves recognition in for its own merits. In that sense, while watching this I couldn't help wondering if it might have provided the inspiration for Terry Gilliam's movie, "Brazil".

Tsar Paul is such a martinet that his courtiers are so terrified to admit to a typographical error in the regimental orders of the day that they resort to inventing a non-existent Lieutenant Kizhe in order to comply with what is written down on the paper. However, matters begin to spiral out of control when the eccentric Tsar takes a personal interest in the "confidential and invisible" officer.

This movie is highly recommended to anyone who thinks that Russian Cinema begins and ends with the heavy, epic propaganda films of Serge Eisenstein. "Lieutenant Kizhe" is well produced and the actors are excellent, but the material is never ponderous. incidentally, for those who may be interested, it is available on Youtube. I might add that even the subtitles are very legible, which is not always the case with Russian films.