''Happiness'' (russian: Счастье, Schastye) is a 1935 silent satirical slapstick (or rather

lubok A ''lubok'' (plural ''lubki'', Cyrillic: russian: лубо́к, лубо́чная картинка) is a Russian popular print, characterized by simple graphics and narratives derived from literature, religious stories, and popular tales. Lubki ...

) comedy set in the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

before the

October Revolution The October Revolution,. officially known as the Great October Socialist Revolution. in the Soviet Union, also known as the Bolshevik Revolution, was a revolution in Russia led by the Bolshevik Party of Vladimir Lenin that was a key moment ...

and in the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

at the time of the

collectivization Collective farming and communal farming are various types of, "agricultural production in which multiple farmers run their holdings as a joint enterprise". There are two broad types of communal farms: agricultural cooperatives, in which member ...

. Medvedkin's original title was ''The Snatchers'' or ''The Possessors'' (Стяжатели).Emma Widdis. ''Alexander Medvedkin''. I.B.Tauris, 2005. . Pages 36, 49. The original print featured an experimental color sequence illustrating a poor peasant's dreams of becoming a king. It was the first color production of the

Mosfilm Mosfilm (russian: Мосфильм, ''Mosfil’m'' ) is a film studio which is among the largest and oldest in the Russian Federation and in Europe. Founded in 1924 in the USSR as a production unit of that nation's film monopoly, its output incl ...

studio. According to Medvedkin, "At that time the peasant could not dream of anything multicoloured of beautiful. His dream was limited, and in that the technology helped". The sequence was discarded on account of its poor technical quality and is apparently lost. Unnoticed on its release, ''Happiness'' became well known in the 1960s among film scholars. It was especially championed by

Chris Marker Chris Marker (; 29 July 1921 – 29 July 2012) was a French writer, photographer, documentary film director, multimedia artist and Essay#Film, film essayist. His best known films are ''La Jetée'' (1962), ''A Grin Without a Cat'' (1977) and ''S ...

who included some excerpts from ''Happiness'' in his 1992 documentary '' The Last Bolshevik''.

Cast

* Peter Zinoviev as The Loser * Elena Egorova as Anna

References

External links

* 1935 comedy films 1935 films Russian silent feature films Soviet comedy films Russian comedy films Articles containing video clips Soviet black-and-white films Soviet silent feature films Russian black-and-white films Silent comedy films {{1930s-USSR-film-stub