Testing Ground (USSR, 1977)

This is a Soviet cartoon for grown-ups on an anti-war theme from 1977 by director Anatoly Petrov based on the science fiction story of the same name by Sever Gansovsky, who was also the screenwriter of the film. The lead animator is Vladimir Zarubin (https://t.me/BeornAndTheShieldmaiden/9409). The roles were voiced by Anatoly Kuznetsov, Alexander Belyavsky, Vsevolod Yakut, Oleg Mokshantsev, Sergey Martynov.

The plot:
An inventor (a representative of a capitalist regime) creates a new tank. The tank is being tested in the ocean on a remote tropical island, from which a local tribe was removed by boat, in the presence of a military commission headed by a general. The "defence" tests are going brilliantly: the tank, the inventor explains to the commission, reads the enemy's thoughts, perceives target designation data and reacts to them, automatically dodging all projectiles and missiles fired at it.

The general is satisfied with the invulnerability of the tank and orders to test the "attack mode"...

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Some trivia about the film "Testing Ground":

👉 In 1978, the animated film was awarded the 1st prize in the cartoon section at the XI All-Union Film Festival in Yerevan (Armenian SSR).

👉 The authors of the music are not listed in the credits. The melody of Tanha Shodam (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0EBNBIOQfI) (1972) by the Afghan composer Ahmad Zahir, performed by Paul Moria (better known as El Bimbo), was used.

👉 For the first time ever, this cartoon presents an unusual technology — "photo-graphics", where two layers of celluloid are used for each character with special colouring schemes, and one of the layers is removed out of focus.

👉 The characters' faces are conveyed in unprecedented detail and resemble foreign actors Jean Gabin, Paul Newman, Mel Ferrer, Yul Brynner and Ringo Starr.

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What was science fiction in 1977, is not so much fiction nowadays, with autonomous war machines appearing more and more on the battlefield...

From our Telegram channel "Beorn And The Shieldmaiden": https://t.me/BeornAndTheShieldmaiden/10921