Holidays Boniface

Clever, intelligent, highly talented circus lion Boniface loves bananas and walks around the city, which he makes with the director of the circus. Having learned during one of these walks that there are vacations in the world, the lion was saddened: “And I have never had a vacation ...” Considering Boniface an exemplary lion, the circus director decides to let him go on vacation. And happy Boniface, first by train, and then by boat goes to Africa to his grandmother. On the way, he dreams of lying in the sun, swimming in the lake, eating bananas and is sure to catch a goldfish.

The morning after arriving home, where nothing has changed and the tiny grandmother with glasses and an old-fashioned cap ^{[K 1]} is still sitting near her house in a rocking chair with knitting on her knees, Boniface, dressed in a new bathing suit, armed with a butterfly net and bucket goes to the lake. Chasing a beautiful butterfly, he unexpectedly meets a little girl who is very scared when she sees a “strange lion”. To reassure her, Boniface cleverly juggles with colorful pebbles. From this moment begins a new stage in his creative life. The art of this strange kind lion in a striped swimsuit makes a huge impression on a girl who has never seen anything like it. She begins to bring grateful spectators to him. Every day on the path leading to the lake, he is watched by a whole crowd of young children awaiting the recurrence of circus wonders. Boniface’s attempts to stop these performances, still get to the lake and begin to relax according to his plan break up about the inability to deceive the trusting expectations of children. Inexhaustible to fiction, Boniface invents and demonstrates new tricks and tricks: “Not a single lion would be able to do this!” Every day from morning to evening he gives performances, forgetting about fishing and swimming in the lake.

But time passes, and one day in the midst of the performance, the buzzer sounds. Vacations are over. Having quickly packed his suitcase, Boniface hurries to the pier. All the children came running to see him, and, of course, grandmother. The ship is about to set sail, and the lion can’t say goodbye to its small spectators. Grandma barely manages to put on a new sweater that she knitted all summer. Finally, Boniface steps onto the gangway, but does not have time to pass it to the end, as the steamer sets sail, and the lion falls into the water. Having safely reached the ship deck, he feels that something is moving under the sweater. Caution Boniface pulls out a goldfish from under his sweater. Holding his "dream come true" in the clutches of a few seconds, he releases it into the sea.

Creation History

Work on the film began with the fact that several pages of the typewritten text of a tale by Milos Matsourek accidentally fell into the hands of Fyodor Khitruk. The attention of the director, who, having finished work on Toptyzhka , was looking for a topic for a new film, was attracted by the phrase: “Just think,” the circus director was surprised, “I forgot that lions also have grandmothers!” ^[1] .

Something touched me in this touching story about a lion, which was forced to portray a fierce predator ... I do not know what exactly, but there was something in this story that suddenly captured me, caused a strong response in my structure.

- F. Khitruk ^[1]

The script written by F. Hitruk on this material conceptually changed the story told by a Czech writer. A short, slightly sad tale for children of primary and secondary school age about a circus lion who came home on vacation and instead of rest relentlessly giving ideas for his "little, funny nephews", the film transformed into a rather philosophical story about the power of Kindness and the kindness of the Force, successfully combining mild humor with lyricism. This was largely facilitated by the artistic decision of Sergei Alimov, who after the release of the film began to be called "Pope Boniface" ^{[4] [6]} . The outwardly simple plastic image of the main character in the many years of directorial practice of Fyodor Khitruk was one of the most complex ^{[4] [7]} . An elegant, sufficiently anthropomorphic lion looked good in profile, but the structure of his “face” did not allow him to smile, which complicated the embodiment of a given character ^[7] . The creation of a fluffy mane Boniface turned out to be a rather laborious process, on the “laying” of which, according to the sketches of S. Alimov, a special group of artists worked, treating it with special tampons ^{[8] [6]} . S. Alimov explained the anthropomorphism of the plastic of a charming lion, due to the sensation of this image by the creators of the film:

Fyodor Khitruk considered this film to some extent autobiographical, and the image of the lion Boniface - so that embodied the greatest number of his personal features ^[9] .

By the way, Boniface is me too. Not Khitruk Fedor Savelyevich, but an artist in general. After each film, I curse the cinema in general and my profession in particular: “Never in my life! If it all disappears! ... ”But it happens that you are sitting in a movie theater, showing cartoons to your children and again there is a desire to work. When I see the happy faces of children watching my films, I feel unusually rested.

- F. Khitruk ^[7]

Children were invited to the studio to record the infectious children's laugh that sounds in the film. In the viewing room they were shown a movie without sound, the children laughed. Their laughter, recorded on film, entered the film and became the laughter of young black spectators Boniface ^[10] .

Director

It was with “Boniface Vacation” that Fyodor Khitruk began to apply his new scheme for developing a director’s script by plotting a timing chart on a large paper sheet with second-by-second marking — the calculation of movement in time and space and the calculation of mood, which he called the “ cardiogram of the film” . Colored pencils indicated the attractiveness (emotional message) of individual episodes (“ attractions ”) ^[1] . Yuri Norshtein, who worked for about two months in the film crew “Vacation Bonifacia” ^[12] (he made a scene in which a lion, floating on a ship, dreams of relaxation and a goldfish ^[10] ), considering the film “the perfection of harmony, a masterpiece of sound rhythm, vocabulary and musical-verbal and plastic unity ”, spoke of his rhythmic solution ^[13] :

A tremendous impression of Boniface - I saw what work on the rhythm of the film is. To this day, for me, this film is an example of a perfectly constructed ratio of the author’s text and character movement.

- Yuri Norshtein ^[10] .

According to Yuri Norshtein, whom F. Khitruk considered the most accurate follower of his direction in animation, “Boniface Vacations” can be attributed to one of the reference films among those that were shot on “Soyuzmusfilm”:

The standard, because I know what an amazing, subtlest direction there is that the actors of a feature film should actually study. There are such overtones, such layers, and God forbid that the directors of the feature films understand this ^[14] .

Artistic Features

The visual series of the film, which takes place in Africa, is solved in a style reminiscent of cave painting and approaching the genre of African carpet applique ^[15] .

The film develops in a conditional world where the African landscape is represented by an exotic combination of sand, water and tropical plants. The landscape is given deliberate decorativeness, the artist’s striving for clear contours and the geometric correctness of the floral ornament is noticeable, which gives it a traditional African elegance and emphasizes the general conventionality of the composition.

- Benjamin Beniman ^[15]

The expression of brightly individual images, endowed with some hyperbolicity of individual personality qualities, through plastics, which allows you to feel the emotional state of the characters without a logical assessment of their actions, also brings the style of the film’s artistic decision closer to African art ^[15] .

Although the entire film was made in the traditional style of contour drawing for animation, an exception was made for the artistic embodiment of the protagonist. To give the image of an artistic lion special warmth, its mane to achieve the effect of “fluffiness” was made using a contourless technique, which required painstaking handwork, which made each picture of the film unique ^{[8] [6]} . The same technique was applied by S. Alimov in his work on Toptyzhka .

The film ends with the final phrase, which was invented by the editor Raisa Fritschinskaya: “The ship sailed further and further, and Boniface thought: What a wonderful thing - the holidays!” ^[16] .

This lion worked in Africa 24 hours a day, and suddenly at the end it says: “What a wonderful thing - the holidays!” He believes that he had a good rest, understand? And there is a big truth! When you feel that you bring joy, you are not tired.

- F. Khitruk ^[17] .

• 1965 - Honorary diploma at the X IFF in Cork ( Ireland ).
• 1966 - First prize in the section of animated films at the II All-Union Film Festival in Kiev .
• 1966 - Golden Pelican Prize in the nomination of children's films at the I International Film Festival of Animated Films in Mamaia ( Romania ).
• 1967 - Incentive diploma at the II International Children's Film Festival in Tehran ^[18] .

• The literary script of the film was repeatedly published as an independent literary work for children.
• The film was repeatedly released on DVD as part of various cartoon collections.

• In 1970, the Moscow publishing house Bureau of Propaganda of Soviet Cinema, published a series of color postcards - a selection of frames from the cartoon Boniface Vacations. The circulation of a set of eleven cards is 300,000 copies.
• In 1972, the publishing house " Soviet Artist " published a series of cards of 18 pieces (artist - S. Alimov). Circulation - 80,000 copies.
• A fragment of the cartoon "Boniface Vacations" is present in another cartoon - " Uncle Au ", when during the celebration of her birthday, the girl Rimma and her friends watch TV.

• Films-tales: scripts of hand-drawn films. - M .: Art, 1972. - Issue. 10 .-- 222 s.
  • [Also]. - 2nd ed. - 1974.

• Working materials of the film "Vacations Bonifacia" , animationclub.ru.
• Khitruk F. S. "Boniface's Holidays" , books.rusf.ru.
• "Bonifacia Holidays" on " Animator.ru "
• Boniface Vacations on the Internet Movie Database
• “Boniface Vacations” on the site “Encyclopedia of Russian Cinema”
• Natalia Rudenko . “Boniface Vacations - Give the Lion a Rest ...” An article about the cartoon on the NashFilm.ru website.
• A selection of frames from the cartoon "Vacation Boniface" (a series of postcards), 1970.
• A set of cards "Vacations Boniface" , 1972.