What the iconic Soviet animated movie ‘Hedgehog in the Fog’ is actually about
Director Yuri Norstein would later reveal that the prototype for the character of Hedgehog was borrowed from an icon depicting Christ’s face.
“When we did the Hedgehog, we were looking at Andrey Rublev’s ‘Spas’ (“Savrior”)... The idea was to create a sense of the protagonist’s universality - his gaze, movements…”
Another unexpected source of reference was Dante’s ‘Divine Comedy’, with regard to the story: Hedgehog finds himself on the border between two worlds - a Purgatory of sorts. But in the end, as he nearly drowns, he is saved by an unknown force. And so it was with Dante’s journey through the Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise, on his way to finding God.
As he presented the idea to the art panel, Norstein described it using a single phrase: “Midway upon the journey of our life, I found myself within a forest dark” – the first lines of the ‘Divine Comedy’.
