Die Nacht vor Weihnachten

I have seen a few Russian fairy tales and adventure movies from the same time which I enjoyed watching. This one about a blacksmith/painter and the devil and their struggle with each other I did find quite lackluster though.

The movie has nice color pictures for this sort of story. But the story feels like it moves in slow motion. The movie is only just over an hour long but I was bored before it ended. Things like special effects were handled by showing the movie backwards all the time. 10th time you see the movie going backwards it is not cute anymore.

You can find much better Russian movies and fairy tales from the same time period. I would suggest watching Mariya-iskusnitsa (1960) instead that I found more entertaining.