Treasure Island

Jim Hawkins works at the inn his mother keeps. An old sailor staying there dies and a map is found in his chest; it shows buried treasure. Jim takes it to the doctor in town and to a wealthy man. A ship is hired and they set sail. But most of the crew are former pirates and John Silver, taken on as cook, knows them all. As the ship nears its destination a mutiny is being prepared. Davyd Cherkaskyi directs. It is a Ukrainian production and animated. Its most striking feature is the structure: song sections filmed with real actors are cut into the animation, built as if lecturing the audience directly. The songs treat drink, smoking and greed sardonically, which was unusual in children's films of the period. The animation style is extravagant; the characters are drawn like caricatures and the movement is deliberately excessive. The film became very popular across the Soviet region and its lines entered everyday speech. The narrative follows Stevenson's novel while its register is entirely comic. In a version shown in America the song sections were removed and the film was redubbed. Who it is for: viewers who like classic animation and unusual formal experiment. Who it is not for: the humour is very broad, the structure loose, and the song sections cut into the narrative.