Igor Kovalyov

Man, I wish I could see these in better quality videos. These are brilliant works that really deserve something like a BluRay release.

My interpretation of Hen, His Wife: The wife is clearly a hen and the husband is (somewhat?) aware of this, but sees nothing wrong with it. It's only when the other man starts pointing this out as being wrong or somehow undesirable that the husband comes to think that he doesn't want others to view him in the same way as they view his wife. So, he forces her to leave despite how good she is to him. When he realizes how incapable he is of living alone, the husband calls for his wife to return. But now the wife sees the man as he truly is, something she was blind to until she left him alone for a time.

I'm no animation or movie buff, but I got this feeling while watching Kovalyov's films that I've always associated with Soviet artistic expression. Some animators, like Kovalyov, bring these images with them from their home countries and manage to show off their particular aesthetic and sensibilities in American commercial works like Ah Real Monsters and Rugrats, the stuff Kovalyov did for Nickelodeon. I could be wrong, since I really haven't put any serious thought or study into what dictates "Soviet art" but I get this feeling of soft ennui (perhaps not the right word) from them. It's especially apparent for me in Milch. In comparison, American animation is vibrant, energetic, comedic and fun. They are expressions of joy. It's interesting to compare and contrast the cultural aesthetics and styles of these two countries, especially because of the Cold War, and I believe that their cultural differences are quite apparent in their animated works.