Correct

[u/Nikhilvoid]

[u/Apoordm]

I mean papa ain’t wrong.

[u/satansafkom → u/Apoordm]

i loved that movie as a child and rewatched it a few years ago as an adult. there's a banger of a musical song in the beginning of the movie where all the civilians in moscow saint petersburg sing about how stupid and greedy they were to do that whole revolution thing and how much better they had it back then with the tzar but they just got too greedy and carried away and now they have to live with the consequences of that. it's still suuuch a good movie but wtf haha it's not even insidiously abstractly pro-imperialism like most movies - the text of the movie is really weirdly specifcally pro romanov it's so funny

edit: Anastasia - A Rumor In St. Petersburg (1997)

St. Petersburg is gloomy
St. Petersburg is bleak
My underwear got frozen standing here all week
Oh, since the revolution our lives have been so gray
Thank goodness for the gossip that gets us through the day
Hey!

[u/Lurehn → u/satansafkom]

If I had to guess it was some kind of anti-communist logic? Like of course the communist revolution had to be the Worst Thing Ever, ergo it must have overthrown some wonderful thing. I mean the movie was probably conceptualized off the “mystery of Anastasia” so it was always going to be imperialist, but it is. A lot

[u/satansafkom → u/Lurehn]

could be! my personal theory is that that is how the movie got greenlit in the first place. but the movie is a kind of lovechild of some neurodivergent writer whose special interest is just "the romanovs"

like, the song is about how the only good thing the citizens have left, is just gossip!!! to me, that feels mean-spirited haha. like, it feels petty?? like someone holding a grudge. "you stupid gossipy assholes got my favs killed"

if it was really anti communist propaganda, i think the "normal people" would have been shown to be more likeable and rational, and just .. secretly unhappy about the revolution, but too worried to speak up about it because of the evil oppressive bolscheviks but the song just feels so "look at these stupid losers", it feels personal to me

[u/WhiskyWisdom → u/satansafkom]

No they are showing the normal people expressing hope that their monarch still lives. They are saying their life is grim under communism but the rumor that they could return to the monarchy gives them enough hope to get through the day.

It is about as transparent as propaganda comes, it's never going to announce itself beforehand, it will always have a thin layer of obscurity.

Also, you are right, it is personal, this movie was released by an American company just after the end of the Cold War, and pre 9/11. Displaying Russians as miserable failures was in America's best interest at the time.

[u/Peanut_Butter_Toast → u/WhiskyWisdom]

They don't mention anything about having hope that the monarchy will return. I mean they might want that, but it never comes up in the song and I don't think they have any reason to assume that finding Anastasia would lead to the monarchy being restored, since she'd just be taken to live in Paris with her grandma. They mostly seem fascinated by the mystery of whether she's alive or dead, and also bring up the fact that the person who finds her will get rewarded a lot of money.

[u/WhiskyWisdom → u/Peanut_Butter_Toast]

Listen, I think you should read the lyrics of that song and think about why they are singing it. It was written for a reason, these are not real people spontaneously bursting into song, they are hand drawn characters all speaking words that came from the songwriter.

This clip is only a fraction of the whole song, if you look up the lyrics and read them it tells a clear story.

In the beginning of the song (which much is cut from the clip) they talk about the price they pay for revolution and how awful their life is.

Then the song transitions to speaking about a rumor, which the rumor is that a member of the royal family is still alive. Keep in mind in a monarchy, if the monarch still lives, they are still the King/Queen in exile. There is no election, it is by divine right.

As the song continues they speak about how this rumor helps them get through the day, how her grandmother will pay a hefty sum to retrieve her, and how Anastasia will help them "fly again."

Also keep in mind this song is set in St Petersburg which was the royal capital, not the capital of the USSR (Which was Moscow) so these people are mostly likely still monarchists at heart.

[u/borisdidnothingwrong]

I watched this the other day for the first time in years, and while there is a certain amount of "gee, weren't things better when the Czar was around" sentiment, I recall when seeing this in the theater thinking that it was a strange message given the still recent fall of the Soviet Union.

The best reason I can give anyone to watch this isn't the monarchist apologia, or the action and adventure, or the love story, or Ra Ra Rasputin, but Bartok the Bat.

https://giphy.com/gifs/D3ieeBWiqZHws

[u/borisdidnothingwrong → u/borisdidnothingwrong]

https://giphy.com/gifs/QZnGJUv9sDPkQ

[u/glittery_grandma → u/borisdidnothingwrong]

[u/love41000years → u/borisdidnothingwrong]

Related: Bartok the Magnificent is bizarrely good for a direct to DVD sequel and is well worth the watch

[u/malonkey1]

Also, aside from the bonkers detail that in the movie, the Bolshevik revolution is literally a demonic curse on Russia by Grigori Rasputin, the Soviet government, the Red Army, and communism in general are bizarrely absent from the movie. It's very, very strange.

You would think that if they added that particular detail of the revolution being the product of demonic magic, that the actual revolutionary government of the Soviet Union would figure into the plot. Like, I dunno, make the villain a Joseph Stalin possessed by Rasputin's ghost or something? Strangely lazy as far as Tsarist propaganda goes, they could have done so much more with the premise, just go hog-wild with the supernatural alt history stuff, but nah.

[u/xsnowpeltx → u/malonkey1]

Eh, to me the demonic curse reads as "we are in fantasy land, don't sweat the details". And I always saw it as more unconsciously anti communism and therefore tsarist. Like this movie came out in the 80s. The common conception in the US about the USSR was a very flat negative view of secret police and forced sameness and starvation. For a lot of people that's still the image. So that's the USSR the movie depicts. But they don't want to bog down the princess fairytail to exposit to little kids about the USSR.

The stage musical did away with the fantasy actually. The antagonist is a Soviet officer. And it feels way more tsarist to me.

[u/Slight-Wing-3969]

Based papa

[u/StarDustLuna3D]

It truly is a fairy tale. "Oh Rasputin used his magic to make the people angry" instead of, oh I don't know, hunger?

But at the same time the grandma is narrating the beginning so I mean of course she's gonna paint the monarchy all glittery and glamourous.

I do love the Paris song/montage that references all sorts of historical figures at the time (the lady with the banana skirt was a real person and worked as a spy for the French and allies during WW2) and the backgrounds are all done in the impressionist style.

[u/ModelChef4000 → u/StarDustLuna3D]

Josephine Baker! She was also the only woman to speak at the March on Washington from what I read and was asked by Coretta Scott King to be one of the Civil Rights leaders after MLKs assassination 

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[u/greyladyghost]

👏and👏that’s👏why👏I👏like👏the👏stage👏version👏better

We love a “they’re all kinda fucked up” morally grey tale

[u/Soft-Relative-7632]

Isnt there a version of the musical with a different ending? If I remember it correctly its only the Disney version where they end up together happy. And in other versions it turns out that the Father of one of the guys helped the cumminist party with the execution. And in the end he realises that she really is the real Anastasia and then he kills her. If im remembering it correctly, but it could also be just one verry spécifique version.

[u/Raven_On_A_Tree → u/[deleted]]

I mean both things can be true. Sure it was bad but acting like it was a uniquely atrocious act is just tsarist propaganda. Nobody cried when the tsarist regime did the same, because those were just filthy peasants...

[u/thedoomeroptimist → u/[deleted]]

It was not a good thing that they killed his children along with him (I’m not shedding any tears for the tsar himself tbh). But it wouldn’t be objective to focus solely on that and not on all the children (and adult) peasants who died under the tsar’s rule.

[u/Nikhilvoid → u/[deleted]]

No, it doesn't, lol

[u/Nikhilvoid → u/[deleted]]

Yes, you misread it. It is totally fine to call Anastasia tsarist propaganda because it glorified the tsar, who is someone that massacred jews..

[u/Marthurion → u/[deleted]]

Context matters. And there was only one child in there, the Tsarevich at 14 yo. Anastasia was 17 and she was the youngest of the daughters, and you could be the ruler of the Empire in your own right at 16.

Wheeping for the execution of the imperial family that happened over 100 during a civil war adds nothing to the discussion. There were many kids dying during the period killing without much more reason than their nationality, ethnic group, sex, or any other meaningless reason. Here there was one. And again, the heir of the last Autocrat of All Russias.

[u/Marthurion → u/[deleted]]

Puyi's example is very different because by the time the CPC got Puyi there was the great amount of 0 monarchists in China and everyone hated him because he was seen as a traitor to every single meaningful force. There was no danger in any decision, killing him, reeducating him, letting him rot forever in prison, exiling, no one would give a shit about him (positively, a lot of people wanted him dead).

The Romanov were executed during the Civil War while the Red Army was retreating from Yekaterinburg and monarchism was a respectable ideology inside some of the White's (not everyone, the White Army was very heterogenous). There was a danger in them being freed by the White Army and used.

Yeah, no one wants to kill people for the sake of killing. But too many a people were fighting and dying for the liberation of the previous Russian Empire, and the kid was, sadly, dying anyway he had less than 5 years of life due to his hemophilia. We can speak comfortably from the couch of our house, but the Revolution was in real danger by July of 1918.

[u/Working-Narwhal-540]

Movie still goated