Treasure Island / Ostriv skarbiv

A worker in a port tavern,  Jimmy Hawkins, sets off on an expedition in search of the treasure of Captain Flint. He has a map that was brought to the tavern by the gravely ill Billy Bones. He sets on his journey with a crew of experienced sailors – yet some of them are not to be trusted.

A two-hour retelling of English adventure classics with a surrealistic twist that echoes the best of Hanna-Barbera, nods to Western pop culture with its avant-garde camera angles, and extensive theatrical segments in the genre of a reconstructionist rock opera, is a masterpiece, the highlight of Davyd Cherkaskyi’s brilliant career.

Prior to this, the director had already created the series Adventures of Captain Wrongel (1976–1979) and Doctor Aibolyt (1984–1985), but Treasure Island turned out to be, in comparison, more radical: extremely idiosyncratic, with a dark pirate sense of humor, multi-layered visual gags, and a fundamental absence of the trademark Soviet approach of talking down to children.