Butterfly butterfly off you fly… Childhood whimsy in “Colourful Dreams” at the 2026 goEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Film6 min read
“In old age wandering on a trail of beauty living again may I walk.”
With videography taken at the distance of a child with their nose pressed up against a glass window, it’s easy to see how the shaky and chaotic style of filming in Virve Aruoja and Jaan Tooming’s 1974 production “Colourful Dreams” captures the essence of childhood. At once whimsical and mournful, for the freedoms at times denied to Kati, the young female protagonist, the film underlines key themes of youth – joy, anger, rough and tumble – surmised by the capturing of a summer in Grandma’s country dwelling.
The film begins with Kati, five years old at the time, singing, asking for the sun to come out and play. Reminiscent of the British children’s show Teletubbies, although most likely unconnected given the film’s Estonian origins, the imagery of warmth and radiance casts a positive, timeless glow on the scene taking place below, even as a glass ball smashes and disrupts the serenity.
As Kati tests the limits and boundaries of social interactions, playing with inanimate objects, village children and kittens, it seems her imagination is boundless. At times, the scenes merge into dreamlike states, and the line blurs between reality and fantasy.
As Kati learns about life, she is given the responsibility of caring for a kitten – much to her mother’s chagrin. Even the kitten doesn’t escape the brush of cinematic dramatisation, as a shriek is placed over a clip of it yawning. To what end remains largely unclear, but perhaps the kitten is frustrated at the rough play it is enduring in Kati’s energetic hands. The kitten does, shortly after, fall into a hole while Kati is distracted climbing on a wall, although luckily a successful rescue mission is conducted shortly after.
The music that accompanies these scenes of play is often slightly unsettling, such as a song that depicts “slumber” on the “hunt” for tired children. At times, even the children engage in slightly disturbing, but perhaps natural, activities, with Kati and her newfound friend, a young boy, ganging up on another boy who appears, in an act that seems to be bullying. The intruder walks away, after the two children ask “Who are you then?” This exploration of negative emotions and jealousy is mirrored in a song about grasshoppers. Highlighting this journey are the lyrics “A grasshopper went to walk around but to his anger he then found. Two of his legs were far too long, others short so it all went wrong.” Akin to any playground scene, the scene shows what happens when children become possessive, form alliances and decide to pick on other children.
As the children fight with and against nature and each other, a poignant scene sees a piece of grass, jammed assertively into the sand, be felled and taken away by the waves – demonstrating, perhaps, the strength of mother nature. Nature itself keeps the children confined within the bounds of safety and reality as they navigate the limits of behaviour and play, wreaking havoc as they go – until Kati’s mum shows up, that is.
Her mother wants to bring her back to the city, away from the freedoms afforded by nature and into the confines of an apartment. Kati scuttles around, finding a hedgehog and some strawberries before enticing her mother into a game of hide and seek. Kati’s relentless energy is met with a lack of enthusiasm regarding the prospect of bringing the tiny kitten back to the city, with her mother saying “Grandma doesn’t know what it’s like to live on the ninth floor.”
Perhaps an allusion to the constricting nature of urban existence, it leaves one torn between the reality of life, of contemporary occupations and routines, and the nascent desire to play in the wild. The film depicts scenes wherein Kati runs through a field of flowers, to a backdrop of fast-paced music, before falling over. The contrast is stark between the freedoms of country life and the constraints of city living where, according to Kati’s mother, they “can’t have everything.”
Despite being told she can’t take the kitten home, Kati succeeds in persuading her parents and they take their new pet back to the city. That night, Kati falls asleep and dreams about the liberties of her day, with strange thoughts regarding grief and anger running amok in her sleep. She buries a bird and asks what happens when people die, before waking up and being left alone by her parents to scamper around the small rooms of the apartment all day.
Kati plays with her kitten pal, watches Soviet-era television, including a show about Latin American indigenous cultures, rolls marbles around on the floor and climbs on the furniture, before her thoughts turn once more to the outside world. She daydreams about birds and picking flowers in the sunshine, yearning to escape from the walls hemming her in. Indeed, when her kitten makes a break for freedom via a window left ajar, Kati runs outside looking for her.
With nature seemingly reserved for those who reach the luxuries of old age, such as Kati’s grandma, she takes fate into her hands and escapes from the flat, trying to keep the wildness of her summer alive. Her freedom is shortly thereafter curtailed by an impending sense of fear, and she runs after the kitten until the outside world of concrete and cars overwhelms her and she stands crying by a fence near her apartment block. Unbeknown to Kati, her mother is searching for her, and even gets the police involved.
When Kati is finally found and returned to her home, the film wraps up to the backdrop of a hypnotic soundtrack and scenes of the ocean and people moving freely and dancing wrapped in brightly coloured sheets. These scenes depict a sense of nostalgia, mourning a loss of freedom and Kati’s curtailed summer fun. The film ends with Kati singing the same song that opened the first few scenes, with the line “sun sun come out to play” reverberating around her.
In a cyclical nature mirroring that of life, we are left thinking about the realities of urban Soviet existence, and the innate yearning that children have to frolic in nature. The film takes us on a visual and conceptual journey showing the possibility of a natural and free way of life within the oppressive experience of life in Estonia at the time – themes that resonate still today as people grind through corporate jobs in concrete jungles. The candid and human nature of Kati’s vision leaves the viewer at once confused and beguiled, utilising a sense of artistic freedom that baffled the censors of the Soviet era. Innovative and experimental, Colourful Dreams is a must-watch for those wanting to live a wild, dreamlike existence.
Colourful Dreams (1974) was screened as part of the 2026 goEast Festival of Central and Eastern European Film.
