Journey into April
About Journey into April
Student journalist Kostika takes a river steamer to Lower Lazureni for his training and gets off at Upper Lazureni by mistake. He falls for Mariuca, whose father is the collective-farm worker Efim, and he spends his fare helping her brother Savka buy football kit for a school class. He stays, dances with Mariuca, and kisses her by accident. On a night when she is guarding the apple trees, a frost hits the orchard and she is reprimanded. Efim and the chairman tell Kostika to leave on the next boat. Local men force him aboard. He jumps into the river at night and walks back to the village.
Cast & crew
More about Journey into April
Vadim Derbenyov directed and was a cinematographer, with Dmitry Motorny and Vitaly Kalashnikov. Aureliu Busuioc, Dmitry Vasiliu, and Leonid Rutitsky wrote the script. Eduard Lazarev wrote the music. Vyacheslav Kotenochkin directed the animated inserts, his first work as a director. Aleksandr Zbruev plays Kostika and Raisa Nedashkovskaya plays Mariuca. The Moscow opening was April 6, 1964. The catalog year is 1962.
Themes
Making
Derbenyov shoots the two Lazureni villages and the steamer as a straight comedy, then cuts to Kotenochkin's drawn dreams. The frost alarm in the apple garden is the turn that gets both of them in trouble.
Look
Vadim Derbenyov, Dmitry Motorny, and Vitaly Kalashnikov photographed the steamer, the village dance, and the orchard fires.
Music
Eduard Lazarev wrote the score. The dreams add Kotenochkin's drawn figures, including a sun playing double bass.
Preservation
A digital copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Trifon Gruzin plays Efim, Yevgeny Zotsenko plays Savka, Yulian Florya plays Mariuca's local suitor, and Ion Ungureanu plays the collective-farm chairman.
- Vladimir Vasilyev is the steamer captain. Rolan Bykov plays a wine seller. Irina Murzaeva plays the guest-house attendant. Aleksandra Nazarova is the telegraph clerk.
- After the dance, Kostika finds "beat the dandy!" chalked on his suitcase.
- Savka feeds him bread, brinza, and wine from a cellar, then puts the drunk guest in Mariuca's bed.
- In the animated dream Kostika dances with Mariuca in the sky while the sun plays a double bass.
Scenes
- Kostika gives Savka the money for the class football equipment and cannot buy his own ticket.
- He dreams of dancing in the sky with Mariuca while an animated sun plays bass.
- Workers light fires in the apple garden when the frost comes in.
- He jumps from the steamer at night and heads back to Upper Lazureni.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1962. Путешествие в апрель.webm)