The Ugly Swans is a 2006 Russian science fiction film

Science fiction film

Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...

 directed by Konstantin Lopushansky

Konstantin Lopushansky

Konstantin Sergeyevich Lopushansky is a Soviet and Russian film director, film theorist and author. He is perhaps best known for his post-apocalyptic film Pisma Myortvogo Cheloveka aka Dead Man's Letters ....

, based on the novel of the same name

The Ugly Swans

The Ugly Swans is a science fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky. In the USSR, it was published in 1987, in the Latvian magazine "Daugava", with the title "The Time of Rains"...

 by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

Arkady and Boris Strugatsky

The brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky are Soviet Jewish-Russian science fiction authors who collaborated on their fiction.-Life and work:...

. The film is often compared to Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Tarkovsky

Andrei Arsenyevich Tarkovsky was a Soviet and Russian filmmaker, writer, film editor, film theorist, theatre and opera director, widely regarded as one of the finest filmmakers of the 20th century....

's Stalker

Stalker (film)

Stalker is a 1979 science fiction film directed by Andrei Tarkovsky, with a screenplay written by Boris and Arkady Strugatsky, loosely based on their novel Roadside Picnic...

, also adapted from a Strugatsky book.

Plot

The film's plot is loosely based on the novel, with some superficial differences. The story has been adjusted slightly to contextualize it in the "near future," with the main character Victor Banev recast as a UN envoy to the town of Tashlinsk, where a mysterious group has taken the town's children to an isolated boarding school. The major departure from the novel's plot is in the ending, in which the "Aquatters" ("Slimeys" from the novel) are all killed by the humans. The children are heroically rescued by Banev, but they are unable to reassimilate into society and are institutionalized.

A small role created for the film was a UN negotiator named Gennady Komov

Gennady Komov

Gennady Komov is a fictional character in Boris and Arkady Strugatsky's series of science fiction novels set in the Noon Universe.-Biography:...

, a reference to a popular character from the Strugatskys' other books.

External links

• Film description at the London Film Festival
  London Film Festival
  The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...