Set in the Ural Mountains, Ptushko's dreamlike, visually ravishing fable follows a melancholy young stone-carver (Vladimir Druzhnikov) whose talents attract the attention of the mystical Queen of Copper Hill (leading actress Tamara Makarova); she seduces him into visiting her dazzling underground world, where the carver begins sculpting an enormous flower out of shimmering stone. Based on a Pavel Bazhov folktale, Stone Flower was Ptushko's first great artistic and popular success, combining a hypnotic, almost religious intensity with images of stunning, supernatural splendor-Paradjanov's Color of Pomegranates meets Bava's Hercules in the Haunted World. "Filmed in excellent color by a secret process," as Life Magazine reported (adding, "delightfully done, has no propaganda, no moral"), it was, in fact, Russia's first full-color feature, and winner of the International Prize for Color at Cannes.