Fantastic! Thanks for writing about Robert Sahakyants (and for linking to Animatsiya). I love the research you've done (though I personally have come across a lot of it before).
I really hope the original Armenian soundtrack of "Fox Book" survives somewhere. I just can't bear to watch it with the awful Russian voice-over. Failing that, I wonder if one day AI will be good enough to seamlessly remove it and restore the sound underneath.
You've kind of glossed over his later work, but I find it no less powerful (if perhaps even less mainstream) than his earlier films.
"The Lesson" (1987) is a worthy psychedelic sci-fi with a surprisingly wholesome ending
"Wind" (1988) is a powerful warning of a world gone wrong that I think is quite relevant today. It kicked off a trend that became a tendency with later films of Sahakyants' - just when you think that things on screen go any more wrong, they do. And again. And again.
"The Axe" (1994) is perhaps his final film made in the style of his famous 1980s ones, and represents his frustration with what he was seeing around him, but once again cloaked in fairy tale form
"I Am Armenian Too" (2000) was his final overtly political film, in which he absolutely roasts the entire Armenian political class from Independence onwards. Reportedly, it was only shown on TV once and then banned. I THINK that this was the last time he ever got state support, too, so his studio fell on lean times:
I think the "spark" went out of Sahakyants after this film - his later films mostly "phone it in" and are mostly pretty mediocre, whereas before I think he would always do his very best on each one.
"Ananas-Bananas" (2004) is, I think, the final film he made aimed at film festivals, and his final film that is any good. It uses all European languages brokenly, to make it truly international. :) However, he went digital here and his animation lost its traditional habit of transformation:
After 2004, Sahakyants' films were not even mediocre, but low budget, low-effort children's animation, with seemingly no trace of his former brilliance. He released a number of 40-50 minute long educational cartoons about subjects such as animals, physics, chemistry, etc. featuring an animal protagonist teaching a child. In Armenian and also dubbed into Russian. The animation and character design are very limited and basic (the same stylistic simplification as in this 2004 film compared to his earlier ones, but even more so), and, judging from some comments I've read from Russian viewers, the science content in at least some of them is also laughably incorrect - it looks like they didn't even have anybody who was actually good at the subjects they were trying to teach check the content.
Every so often, I try to watch one of them, but always give up in disgust after a few minutes.
But it wasn't just after 2004, his 2003 feature film "Tavern" was lackluster as well, and had many of the same flaws. I was on hand to witness Robert Sahakyants' friend and fellow director Garri Bardin's reaction when he first saw "Tavern" (at a certain Western animation festival), and he was clearly very disappointed. Unlike Sahakyants, Bardin taught himself to crowdfund and managed to continue making the films he wanted independently of the state or the commercial market (even to this very day).
If you want to find the unfortunate finale to his career, they're on Youtube (you can try adding the Russian spelling of his name, "Саакянц", to the searches):
Учимся считать (2004)
Твои первые животные (2005)
В мире динозавров (2005)
Астрономия для самых маленьких (2006)
Занимательная химия (2006)
Занимательная геометрия (2006)
Физика для самых маленьких (2007)
География для самых маленьких (2007)
Всемирная история: Вавилон (2007)
Всемирная история: Древний человек (2007)
Английский язык для малышей (2008)
Азбука для малышей (2008)
Занимательная химия (2008)
Энциклопедия Всезнайки. Часть 1 (2008)
Энциклопедия Всезнайки. Часть 2 (2008)
Всемирная история. Древняя Греция (2009)
I suppose it was necessary to make money, and they probably did make money, but it was still a sad end to a brilliant career. But any full biography of Sahakyants should mention the end of the story, too.
His left his studio to his two sons, but what I've seen from them is not as original as his work. Though it is very possible that they simply don't have the freedom that he did.
Thank you! Glad we were able to bring this material on Sahakyants together -- sources about him tend to be so scattered. And, as always, happy to send people Animatsiya's way: you do an amazing job over there. (Wish we could've linked even more of Sahakyants's films to your site, but a few of the embeds, including all the ones for Butter Week, had been taken down by Russian copyright holders for some reason!)
We appreciate this addendum to the piece, too. Sahakyants's later period has turned up a little bit in our past issues (like his attempts to make The Axe in the dark years immediately after the collapse of the USSR), but we haven't looked that far into his post-Soviet work. It's a shame to hear about the educational shorts. He really did seem to lose his way toward the end of his career.
One other interesting detour for him was the Midsummer Night's Dream film he did for Shakespeare: The Animated Tales -- it was apparently a lifeline in those initial post-Soviet years. It's a lot more traditional than The Wind, The Axe or his early stuff, but definitely high-effort and visibly Sahakyants in style: https://vimeo.com/638631665
That last one, Sahakyants' final cartoon about the old man and his grandson, is much more understated than the previous few but I find it to have impeccable comedic timing. Though it's hard to make the jokes translate to English (but I do think the translator, Mr. Icon, made a good attempt).
The current Russian copyright holder of the Soviet Central TV film catalogue took down the restored version of it that had been uploaded by the director's own studio. Unfortunate. Looks like somebody also uploaded that restoration to VKVideo but it is much blurrier (but at least you can see what the colours were probably really meant to look like).
You're right, I had forgotten to mention his Shakespeare contribution. Honestly, I agree with the Russian critiques of those films that they were often too "wordy" and the limits put on them by the English side often didn't make them stronger films. Though Sahakyants' is one of the better ones.
He also made quite a good contribution to "Optimus Mundus" aka. the "Moscow Animation Project" around the year 2000 (a feature film for the city's anniversary made by animation stars from Russia and around the world - a little like Kawamoto's 2003 "Winter Days"). Unfortunately the copyright holder for that still refuses to officially release it anywhere. Having seen it, I think it's a remarkable film despite its flaws, and I hope one day we'll see a proper release (which in my mind would include both the "finished" version shown at some film festivals, where the various works are mashed together and a taxi driver talks over the whole thing, and also a second version where all the shorts that were made are simply played one after the other, without commentary).
Hadn't heard about Optimus Mundus before! That's fascinating -- will keep that on our radar in case it ever turns up somewhere. Looks like Sahakyants's own section is already online, which is at least something. (And thanks so much for replacing those broken videos so quickly. We'll go ahead and add Animatsiya links for those two films.)
Great article! Sahakyants was a huge influence for me when I was developing my CN show “Tig n’ Seek.” It’s great to see him getting a lot of recognition again 🙌🙏
Really appreciate it! He deserves so much more attention outside the ex-Soviet countries than he gets. We hadn't heard before that Tig n' Seek pulled from Sahakyants, but it adds up -- his kind of pacing and gags show up even in the pilot. Very cool to discover.
Fantastic! Thanks for writing about Robert Sahakyants (and for linking to Animatsiya). I love the research you've done (though I personally have come across a lot of it before).
I really hope the original Armenian soundtrack of "Fox Book" survives somewhere. I just can't bear to watch it with the awful Russian voice-over. Failing that, I wonder if one day AI will be good enough to seamlessly remove it and restore the sound underneath.
You've kind of glossed over his later work, but I find it no less powerful (if perhaps even less mainstream) than his earlier films.
"The Lesson" (1987) is a worthy psychedelic sci-fi with a surprisingly wholesome ending
https://animatsiya.net/film.php?filmid=490
"Wind" (1988) is a powerful warning of a world gone wrong that I think is quite relevant today. It kicked off a trend that became a tendency with later films of Sahakyants' - just when you think that things on screen go any more wrong, they do. And again. And again.
https://animatsiya.net/film.php?filmid=101
"The Axe" (1994) is perhaps his final film made in the style of his famous 1980s ones, and represents his frustration with what he was seeing around him, but once again cloaked in fairy tale form
https://animatsiya.net/film.php?filmid=12
"I Am Armenian Too" (2000) was his final overtly political film, in which he absolutely roasts the entire Armenian political class from Independence onwards. Reportedly, it was only shown on TV once and then banned. I THINK that this was the last time he ever got state support, too, so his studio fell on lean times:
https://animatsiya.net/film.php?filmid=1451
I think the "spark" went out of Sahakyants after this film - his later films mostly "phone it in" and are mostly pretty mediocre, whereas before I think he would always do his very best on each one.
"Ananas-Bananas" (2004) is, I think, the final film he made aimed at film festivals, and his final film that is any good. It uses all European languages brokenly, to make it truly international. :) However, he went digital here and his animation lost its traditional habit of transformation:
https://animatsiya.net/film.php?filmid=489
After 2004, Sahakyants' films were not even mediocre, but low budget, low-effort children's animation, with seemingly no trace of his former brilliance. He released a number of 40-50 minute long educational cartoons about subjects such as animals, physics, chemistry, etc. featuring an animal protagonist teaching a child. In Armenian and also dubbed into Russian. The animation and character design are very limited and basic (the same stylistic simplification as in this 2004 film compared to his earlier ones, but even more so), and, judging from some comments I've read from Russian viewers, the science content in at least some of them is also laughably incorrect - it looks like they didn't even have anybody who was actually good at the subjects they were trying to teach check the content.
Every so often, I try to watch one of them, but always give up in disgust after a few minutes.
But it wasn't just after 2004, his 2003 feature film "Tavern" was lackluster as well, and had many of the same flaws. I was on hand to witness Robert Sahakyants' friend and fellow director Garri Bardin's reaction when he first saw "Tavern" (at a certain Western animation festival), and he was clearly very disappointed. Unlike Sahakyants, Bardin taught himself to crowdfund and managed to continue making the films he wanted independently of the state or the commercial market (even to this very day).
If you want to find the unfortunate finale to his career, they're on Youtube (you can try adding the Russian spelling of his name, "Саакянц", to the searches):
Учимся считать (2004)
Твои первые животные (2005)
В мире динозавров (2005)
Астрономия для самых маленьких (2006)
Занимательная химия (2006)
Занимательная геометрия (2006)
Физика для самых маленьких (2007)
География для самых маленьких (2007)
Всемирная история: Вавилон (2007)
Всемирная история: Древний человек (2007)
Английский язык для малышей (2008)
Азбука для малышей (2008)
Занимательная химия (2008)
Энциклопедия Всезнайки. Часть 1 (2008)
Энциклопедия Всезнайки. Часть 2 (2008)
Всемирная история. Древняя Греция (2009)
I suppose it was necessary to make money, and they probably did make money, but it was still a sad end to a brilliant career. But any full biography of Sahakyants should mention the end of the story, too.
His left his studio to his two sons, but what I've seen from them is not as original as his work. Though it is very possible that they simply don't have the freedom that he did.
Thank you! Glad we were able to bring this material on Sahakyants together -- sources about him tend to be so scattered. And, as always, happy to send people Animatsiya's way: you do an amazing job over there. (Wish we could've linked even more of Sahakyants's films to your site, but a few of the embeds, including all the ones for Butter Week, had been taken down by Russian copyright holders for some reason!)
We appreciate this addendum to the piece, too. Sahakyants's later period has turned up a little bit in our past issues (like his attempts to make The Axe in the dark years immediately after the collapse of the USSR), but we haven't looked that far into his post-Soviet work. It's a shame to hear about the educational shorts. He really did seem to lose his way toward the end of his career.
One other interesting detour for him was the Midsummer Night's Dream film he did for Shakespeare: The Animated Tales -- it was apparently a lifeline in those initial post-Soviet years. It's a lot more traditional than The Wind, The Axe or his early stuff, but definitely high-effort and visibly Sahakyants in style: https://vimeo.com/638631665
Thanks again!
Thanks for noticing the broken videos! Their thumbnail previews were still loading for some reason, so I hadn't noticed. I fixed it:
Who Will Tell a Fable? (1982)
https://www.animatsiya.net/film.php?filmid=501
Think You're So Clever, Marty Gra? (aka. Butter Week) (1985)
https://www.animatsiya.net/film.php?filmid=118
That last one, Sahakyants' final cartoon about the old man and his grandson, is much more understated than the previous few but I find it to have impeccable comedic timing. Though it's hard to make the jokes translate to English (but I do think the translator, Mr. Icon, made a good attempt).
The current Russian copyright holder of the Soviet Central TV film catalogue took down the restored version of it that had been uploaded by the director's own studio. Unfortunate. Looks like somebody also uploaded that restoration to VKVideo but it is much blurrier (but at least you can see what the colours were probably really meant to look like).
You're right, I had forgotten to mention his Shakespeare contribution. Honestly, I agree with the Russian critiques of those films that they were often too "wordy" and the limits put on them by the English side often didn't make them stronger films. Though Sahakyants' is one of the better ones.
He also made quite a good contribution to "Optimus Mundus" aka. the "Moscow Animation Project" around the year 2000 (a feature film for the city's anniversary made by animation stars from Russia and around the world - a little like Kawamoto's 2003 "Winter Days"). Unfortunately the copyright holder for that still refuses to officially release it anywhere. Having seen it, I think it's a remarkable film despite its flaws, and I hope one day we'll see a proper release (which in my mind would include both the "finished" version shown at some film festivals, where the various works are mashed together and a taxi driver talks over the whole thing, and also a second version where all the shorts that were made are simply played one after the other, without commentary).
Hadn't heard about Optimus Mundus before! That's fascinating -- will keep that on our radar in case it ever turns up somewhere. Looks like Sahakyants's own section is already online, which is at least something. (And thanks so much for replacing those broken videos so quickly. We'll go ahead and add Animatsiya links for those two films.)
Thanks! I enjoyed reading this.
Very glad to hear that! Thanks a ton.
Great article! Sahakyants was a huge influence for me when I was developing my CN show “Tig n’ Seek.” It’s great to see him getting a lot of recognition again 🙌🙏
Really appreciate it! He deserves so much more attention outside the ex-Soviet countries than he gets. We hadn't heard before that Tig n' Seek pulled from Sahakyants, but it adds up -- his kind of pacing and gags show up even in the pilot. Very cool to discover.
Thanks! Yeah, lots of Soviet era influences in the background designs (flatter, asymmetrical layouts). Also referenced a lot from Yafim Gamberg too.