Temptation of B. aka Iskushenie B

1990 · science-fiction · Arkady And Boris Strugatsky

The story of a writer who accidentally stumbles across the elixir of immortality and the small group of immortals who have jealously guarded this secret for centuries... "Iskushenie.B" or "Temptation of B." is a Russian science-fiction film, directed by Arkadi Sirenko and based on works by the famous Russian science-fiction brother writers, Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky. Released in 1990, at the very end of the communist era of the "Soviet" U.S.S.R. The film has never been "officially" released on DVD (as far as we know and this version is taken from a very good television broadcast). The original translation and subtitles for the film were made by Darnn from the Cinemageddon tracker and revised by Kosmikino. The time and effort involved in creating a decent set of subtitles is immense and we cannot thank Darnn enough for his efforts in making this and other film subtitles available to an English speaking audience. We consider subtitle creation a valuable cultural service both to the film makers and the audience - if any Russian and/or Eastern European bi-lingual speakers are interested in learning how to make subtitles, we have a number of films like this waiting to be translated and we would be more than willing to teach you the necessary skills and offer advice as well as proof-reading and final editing your efforts (a good free way to get feedback on your English skills!). Note: Subtitles are added as a separate SRT file and any improvement or help with the translation is welcomed. The subtitles presented here conform to the 40 character/two line format. While a number of the film adaptions of the writings of Russia's most famous science-fiction brothers Arkady And Boris Strugatsky, are known to western cinema (perhaps most famously, the 1979 film Stalker by Andrei Tarkovsky, based on their 1972 novel 'Roadside Picnic'), the one film that is actually rated by one of the brothers is almost unknown in the west. Boris Strugatsky said of this film: "Brilliant acting. High-precision directing. On a five-point scale, where one means very poor and five means very good, I would have given it a four, which in my opinion is quite something, isn't it? As my mum, an experienced teacher, used to say, four is a decent mark. One has to work hard to gain it." The film is based on elements from two of the Strugatsky brothers' works, the 1986 novel "Lame Fate" and a film script they wrote, titled "Five Spoonfuls of Elixir" (this was actually published in a Russian science-fiction journal in 1985, the year before the book was issued). Note: I know 99% of people simply watch or download without giving any feedback but if people could let me know whether they prefer the subtitles embedded in the film in a nice white font with black shadow, rather than the nasty white on black "box" option, please let me know in the comments (one option would be to upload two versions, one with embedded subtitles and one with a separate SRT file). If you have any more information about this film, such as where it was set, how it was received at the time or can improve the subtitles and/or translate the three different texts that appear at the end of the film in the titles, please leave a comment or better still, message me. I do not speak Russian, however I have been told that this film has fallen between the copyright cracks (the lack of a DVD possibly bears this out) but please let me know if that is not the case as we would be very interested in releasing this film on DVD for the English speaking market. Interestingly, in the opening credits, the production company "Laterna Film" is mentioned, this production company is from Denmark and still seems to have a presence on the internet though an email address has yet to be sourced. What is interesting is the fact the film is not mentioned in the long list created on a Danish cinema website - If anyone knows anything about the company or can generate contact details that would be great as perhaps a pristine copy of this film is languishing in their archives. Contact: kosmikino@gmail.com