The Keepers) is based on the first novel in the Tolkien trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, but while readers may recognise the plot and the characters, this weirdly psychedelic Soviet reimagining is a very different experience from Peter Jackson’s epic film version a decade later.
To find out just how different, we spoke to Irina Nazarova, a Russian artist who saw Khraniteli when it first came out and was familiar with the arts scene which inspired it in Leningrad (Russia’s second city, now known again as St Petersburg)…
So how was your viewing experience this weekend?
Like all my friends, I felt shock and pity… It really was laughter through tears. Actually this was more about the fading away of the USSR than any adventures in Middle Earth [the imaginary world where the action unfolds in The Lord of the Rings].
BBC News
Published
image captionThe hobbit Frodo (right) pictured with the wizard Gandalf
. The low-budget production, which aired briefly in 1991, the year the Soviet Union collapsed, was uploaded this month by Russian television channel 5TV (successor to Leningrad TV, which produced it).
The first episode has notched up half a million YouTube views.
Khraniteli (The Keepers) is based on the first novel in the Tolkien trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, but while readers may recognise the plot and the characters, this weirdly psychedelic Soviet reimagining is a very different experience from Peter Jackson s epic film version a decade later.