Evenings on a Farm near Dikanka

On the night before Christmas, in a village near Dikanka, the devil steals the moon from the sky. In the dark the blacksmith Vakula comes upon Oksana, the woman he loves. Oksana is the daughter of the rich Cossack Chub and she mocks him: bring the tsarina's slippers from the capital and she will marry him. Vakula catches the devil, climbs on his back, and rides to Petersburg. Aleksandr Rou's film adapts Christmas Eve from Gogol's collection of the same name. The narrative runs on folk-tale logic; the devil is not frightening but inept, and magic is shown as an ordinary part of daily life. Rou was the Soviet director who specialised in fairy-tale adaptations and this is among his most widely seen. The snow sequences were shot in the far north and are surprisingly vivid for the colour stock of the period. Who it's for: Viewers who like Soviet fairy-tale cinema, Gogol adaptations, and seasonal films. Who it's not for: The acting register is broad and the pace is set for a child audience. The structure of the narrative is also simple by present-day measure.