Stars of the Soviet Lord of the Rings movie speak out

Just months before the Soviet Union fell in 1991, a Soviet-made adaptation of The Lord of the Rings aired in Russia. The actors explain their labor of love:

Earlier this year, the internet became aware of a 1991 movie adaptation of The Fellowship the Ring released in the Soviet Union literally months before it fell (I’m not saying one caused the other, but I’m not not saying that). Clearly thrown together under very limiting conditions, the two-hour movie called Khraniteli (which roughly translates to The Protectors) is a fascinating curiosity. After all, J.R.R. Tolkien’s work was banned in the Soviet Union in 1982. What would an adaptation of his books look like in those circumstances? What was it like making it?

Well, Variety managed to track down some of the actors who appeared in the production to find out. First of all, let’s tip our hat to the cast and crew who put the movie together, including:

• Director: Natalya “Natasha” Serebryakova
• Bilbo Baggins: Georgiy Shtil
• Valeriy Dyachenko: Frodo Baggins
• Sergey Shelgunov: Merry Brandybuck
• Yevgeni Solyakov: Boromir
• Elena Solovey: Galadriel
• Tom Bombadil: Sergei Parshin

It sounds like the movie was a labor of love. Again, the books were banned in the country at the time, and as Shtil remembered, there were a lot of distractions. “It was a very, very hard time when we were making the movie; people were more focused on the changes in government than any show.”

"We had almost no budget, no costumes, and almost no time. I was pleasantly surprised we were able to do so much with so little. Mostly, I just thought about how great it was to see everyone in the cast, and how much I miss them."

Shtil and Solyakov, by the way, still perform at the esteemed Tovstonogov Bolshoi Drama Theater in St. Petersburg, while Shelgunov and Dyachenko work at the Bryantsev Youth Theater, which is just a 15-minute walk away. “We used everything that the TV station had to offer at the time, Shelgunov said. “The backdrops, the cheap plastic props, the wigs and make-up, everything was just what we could find there for free.”

There were also under very severe time constraints, able to film at the studio in three-hour increments before the sets had to be cleared for other programs. They made the whole thing in about nine hours over the course of a week, and only get paid a nominal sum over their state-sanctioned salary under the Soviet system of nationalized theaters. They did all this because they wanted to; such is the international power of Tolkien’s story.

Back in these days, it was common for Soviet filmmakers to “adapt” a story simply by filming a staged version of it, with no extra cinematic frills. But director Natasha Serebryakova wanted to go above and beyond. “Natasha wanted to create a sort of mysterious atmosphere, so she’d put some candles in the foreground and try to shoot through them for a kind of blur effect,” Shelgunov remembered. “The film is 100% the result of her struggles, working 30 years ago without any money. Frankly, it’s a huge win that it looks as good as it does.”

For the record, Shtil loved Peter Jackson’s epic adaptation of the books a decade later, but notes that their version has some perks as well. “Ours has professional ballerinas, and a lot of songs and poems. The foreign movie doesn’t have that.”

Solyakov is a little less high on Khraniteli, and wonders if he should have played Boromir a bit differently. “I don’t think I played the role to the fullest. I wish I hadn’t been so emotional when I was trying to explain why I wanted the ring — I should have remained very composed.”

In the end, Shelgunov laughs that he feels “a bit ashamed” of the movie now, but still has fond memories of making it. “It’s very simple, very primitive. But everyone can see that we did the best we could with what we had.”

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