We’re well over halfway through watching An Usual Wonder on YouTube.
It’s hard to know what to make of it. Just when we think we’re getting the idea of what it is, it does something unexpected. There is music that might be from an old James Bond movie, but what is that with a magician and scenes from the wild west (or east, in the case of a Russian movie)? The magician and his wife are definitely not a Usual Magician and spouse. And it’s not a Usual Bear-turned-into-a-man. The role of king seems made for Evgeni Leonov, but it’s not a Usual King. If you like swordfight scenes, there is one with a charming end to it. It’s a love story, maybe three or more love stories, but it’s hard to say whether they’re silly or profound. And it’s hard to say how all the parts are going to come together in the end.
Most of it seems made more for the stage than the screen. The movie is from 1978, from the Soviet days.
Wikipedia tells us that socialist realism requires the showing of the typical life of people, and there is certainly a lot of that in movies from the Soviet era, but there is also a lot that’s far from it — in unusual combinations.
This is a mixed up explanation, but then the movie a mixed up thing, too. We’re liking it so far.