Tale About the Lost Time

Tale about the Lost Time
Directed by	Aleksandr Ptushko
Written by	Anna Rodionova
Starring	Grigoriy Plotkin Vera Volkova Lidia Konstantinova
Music by	Igor Morozov
Cinematography	Samuel Rubashkin
Production company	Mosfilm
Release date	1964 (1964)
Running time	76 minutes
Country	Soviet Union
Language	Russian

Tale about the Lost Time (Russian: Сказка о потерянном времени, translit. Skazka o poteryannom vremeni) is a 1964 Soviet fantasy film directed by Aleksandr Ptushko based on a tale by Evgeny Schwartz.^[1][2]

Plot

The protagonist, third-grader Petya Zubov, is first shown as a lazy person who is wasting time. After waking up in the morning, he decides to take a walk around the city, as he is not worried about being late for school. Once upon a time, four evil wizards, whose main mission in life is to do bad to people, realize that they are old and can not do their work the way they used to. They decide to regain their youth. To do this they must find a few young lazy people in order to collect time which was spent ineptly, and then use it to make flatbread and eat it.

The wizards set out on a quest. They manage to find children who are wasting their time (among them is Petya Zubov), and to collect their lost time into sacks. After that, the children instantly age. And the wizards make flatbread from flour to which they added the collected time. However, they eat more than necessary, as a result of which they turn into children. After having come to school, Petya Zubov sees that he has grown old. However, he thinks he is just still asleep. After deliberating about this matter, he decides not to wake up yet. After seeing his class and introducing himself as his own grandfather, he again goes to the city, where he tries himself in various adult roles, which end in failure because he is not well-versed in anything.

In the end, he decides to wake up, but realizes that he is not able to. Petya is in sorrow. It turns out that even his own mother can not recognize him, only his dog Druzhok still comes to him. Due to lack of money, Petya decides to go along with his dog to the forest where no humans have ever set foot. Thus, he enters the Magic Forest, where evil wizards live. Having reached their dwelling, Petya does not find anyone at home. Entering the empty house, he talks to the magic cuckoo on the wall clock and waters it (which the wizards never did).

The cuckoo agrees to help Petya back to his former state and explains to him that for this it is merely necessary to turn the hour hand on the wizard's watch back three times, while chanting the spell. The spell will be broken, and the wizards will disappear. This should be done before sunset, but after this it will be impossible to remove the spell. But Petya learns from the cuckoo that there are two girls and one boy turned into old people in the city, and if Petya turns the arrow without their presence, he will turn into a boy, and they will never turn back into themselves. Petya decides to first find the children, and then break the spell.

While the wizards are making dirty tricks among children of his age, Petya, with the help of Druzhok, looks for the transformed children. His search finishes with success. At the same time, the wizards realize that their spell has been cleared and hurry home, trying to overtake the old men and hide the clock. A pursuit commences. All arrive almost simultaneously to the house of magicians. But Petya and the other enchanted children still manage to remove the spell and become children again, and the wizards disappear.

Cast

References

External links

Tale About the Lost Time on IMDb