ROCK N' ROLL WOLF (MA-MA)

Romania, 1976, 86 minutes, Colour.
Lyudmila Gurhenko, Mikhail Boyarsky.
Directed by Elisabeta Bostan.

A widescreen colourful spectacular rock fantasy for children. Featuring members of the Bolshoi Ballet, it is an allegory and fable using humans in animal form with the basic story of the wolf kidnapping children. Filmed in English, it is very lavishly done. However, one wonders towards whom the film is directed and what communication it would have. The songs are fairly conventional and not particularly rock and roll. A cinema oddity.

1. For what audience was this film made? What age? The appeals to boys, girls, family audiences? Adults? National appeal? The response to the visuals, the fable, the music and song?

2. The contribution of the Bolshoi dancers, their dance styles, modern ballet, song?

3. The quality of the music, the appeal of the songs, their placing during the fable, repetition, style? modern, rock and roll?

4. The quality of the colour photography, the use of wide screen? Lavish sets and costumes? The appeal to the eye and to audience delight?

5. The importance of the make-up - costumes, the animal suggestions for the humans? The importance of the credits sequence and the introduction to the actors and the animals they were portraying? Audience acceptance of this style of human/animal fable?

6. The nature of fable - plot, characters as types, predictable incidents for meaning? The moralizing and didactic tone? The blending of animals and human tendencies and qualities? The humanizing of animals - as symbols of human behaviour?

7. Audience response to the various animals presented, their visual appeal, characteristics, comedy, action, styles of singing and dancing? The wolf himself dressed in black as evil? His henchmen? The sheep, the rabbits, the squirrels? The children?

8. The portrayal of happiness, home life, danger? The jealousy and envy of the wolf? Motherly care, the children and the little boy who ventured too far? Portrayal of market, home, gaiety, the clown?

9. The portrayal of good and evil, right prevailing and wrong being overcome?

10. Audience identification with the various animals?

11. The ensemble work and its effect?

12. The overall impact of the film an a musical, fantasy? Folklore and its traditions, fairytale? (the interest for psychologists in this human presentation of animals as symbols?