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Not much to add really to what's already been said before, and so well too. Tale of Tales is one of the finest Soviet animations ever made alongside Hedgehog in the Fog, and one of the most powerful and poignant of the entire animation medium too. The visuals are really striking, atmospherically coloured and impeccably detailed, several of the images are enough to stay with you forever and the symbolic ones are really quite meaningful. Tale of Tales is scored wonderfully too, all of it fits with the visuals like strawberries and cream whether ethereally beautiful in the retrospective moments or hauntingly rousing in the war/battle images. The story and atmosphere are rendered adeptly, the story is structured into three sections, each of them is firmly focused and full of emotional impact and they follow and overlap one another with no signs of jarring or clumsiness. The retrospective moments are nostalgic and poignant, the middle section is just gut-wrenching and the idealism of the final section shows some hope, contrasting beautifully with what's been seen before. Tale of Tales is well-paced, it allows the visuals to breathe and resonate nor does it descend into tedium, and the powerful, affecting and nostalgic atmosphere is incredibly well-done. To conclude, a fine example of a Soviet animation masterpiece and one of the finest examples too. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Using a mix of puppet, cutout, and cell animation, Yuri Norstein made in Tale of Tales a heartbreaking, tenderly poetic meditation on Russian history as well as one of the most stunningly beautiful animated films ever. Very hard to get, but don't miss a chance to see this film.

The human memory does not operate in a straightforward, linear manner. We do not remember events in neat chronological order, nor do we always immediately understand the meaning behind what we are seeing. Our memories are a jumble of seemingly-random but ultimately connected images, sporadically jumping between remembered places and moments, associations triggered by the repeated appearance of deceptively mundane but eerily familiar objects. There is much to be learned from exploring the unfathomable depths of the mind, and Russian animator Yuriy Norshteyn's 'Tale of Tales' strives to do exactly that.

In 1984, in an event held in conjunction with the Los Angeles Olympics, the Animation Olympiad jury attempted to recognise the single greatest animated film of all time. Despite a wealth of worthy candidates, one film was ultimately crowned with the grand title: that film, of course, was 'Tale of Tales.' Two decades later, at the 2002 Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films, the same film was honoured with the same prestigious title, confirming beyond doubt that time has done nothing to dampen its beauty. Norshteyn's masterpiece is a triumph of stunning animation, ambient sound and a stirring classical score. Despite being held in such high regard by so many animation experts, I was surprised to discover how rare and under-seen this film actually is. Only via the internet was I able to watch it, and my hearing about it in the first place can be put down to blind luck. Needless to say, I am infinitely grateful that I did stumble upon the film one day.

'Tales of Tales' is comprised of a number of related sequences, which are interspersed within each other. The film uses several recurring characters, most notably the poet, the little girl playing jump-rope with the disheartened bull, the young boy feeding apples to the crows, the dancers and the soldiers, the suckling baby and, of course, the little grey wolf (voiced by Aleksandr Kalyagin). The meanings behind the film's poignant images are somewhat beyond words, and, even if you have absolutely no desire to try and decipher the rich symbolism, you can still simply sit back and take in the awesome beauty. The sequences involving the dancers are most certainly an allegory for Russia's involvement in World War Two. The vanishing male dance partners, replaced by hooded Grim Reapers who retreat solemnly into the distance, highlight the enormous human losses the Soviet Union suffered on the Eastern Front.

The original title of the short, 'The Little Grey Wolf Will Come,' was derived from a traditional Russian lullaby, which is featured in the film in both instrumental and vocal form: "Baby, baby, rock-a-bye / On the edge you mustn't lie / Or the little grey wolf will come / And will nip you on the tum / Tug you off into the wood / Underneath the willow-root." This title, however, was ultimately rejected by the Soviet censors, and Norshteyn was forced to choose another one. He eventually decided upon 'Tale of Tales,' the title of a poem by Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet, of which the director had been a fan since 1962: "We stand above the water - sun, cat, plane tree (platanus tree), me / and our destiny. / The water is cool, / The plane tree is tall, / The sun is shining, / The cat is dozing, / I write verses. / Thank God, we live!" The film employs an original music score by Mikhail Meyerovich, supplementing his contributions with the classic works of Bach, Mozart and the World War Two era tango, 'Weary Sun,' written by Jerzy Petersburski.

Curiously, 'Tale of Tales' – completed in 1979 – is the most recent film directed by Yuriy Norshteyn. This, however, does not mean that he has not been working hard. Ever since 1981, the director has dedicated most of his time to producing 'Shinel / The Overcoat,' his 60-minute labour of love, adapted from Nikolai Gogol's short story of the same name. Throughout a production period plagued with interruptions and financial difficulties, Norshteyn's ardent perfectionism has earned him the nickname, "The Golden Snail." A release date for 'The Overcoat' is currently uncertain, but, if the magnificent 'Tale of Tales' is anything to go by, we are all in for a treat!

Great film. The scene of child with birds remind me the almost same scenes form Andrei Tarkovsky's "the Mirror". I see this film on DVD(the collection of Russian Animation films), the effect is marvelous! The total film like a dream, sometimes make you feel bitter, sometimes smile with tears. I like the prelude and fuge by Bach in this film, and the tango music is also used in Nikita Mikhalkov's film " Burnt by the Sun". The Great film(not only the animation film) I have ever seen.

Grand Prize winner at the Zagreb World Festival of Animated Films Russian director Yuri Norstein's Tale of Tales (alternately titled The Little Grey Wolf Will Come) was named by the 1984 Animation Olympiad jury at the L.A. Olympics as the greatest animated film of all time. Written by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya and Norstein, like Tarkovsky's Zerkalo (The Mirror), it consists of fleeting images, snippets of memory from the director's life. According to Norstein, the film was inspired by the poem Tale of Tales by Nazim Hikmet:

"We stand above the water - sun, cat, plane tree, me and our destiny. The water is cool, The plane tree is tall, The sun is shining, The cat is dozing, I write verses. Thank God, we live!"

The film opens with a grey wolf singing a Russian lullaby to a baby in a cradle:

"Baby baby rock-a-bye On the edge you mustn't lie Or the little grey wolf will come And will nip you on the tum Tug you off into the wood Underneath the willow-root."

Backed by an original score by Mikhail Meerovich and the music of Bach and Mozart, images roll by, some repeated during the film, without any apparent connection: a sad eyed grey wolf nurturing a little baby, a boy eating a green apple, then feeding it to the crows, a passive bull skipping rope with a small girl, men and women's dancing interrupted by soldiers, a woman sitting on a bench with her drunk husband, a man and his son wearing Napoleon hats ostensibly going off to war, women mourning the death of loved ones in the war, apples falling in the snow, among others. Norstein describes the film as being "about simple concepts that give you the strength to live."

Claire Kitson, former Commissioning Editor of Animation for the UK's Channel 4, in her book about the film: Yuri Norstein and Tale of Tales – An Animator's Journey by Clare Kitson. London, U.K., & Bloomington, IN: John Libbey & Indiana University Press, 2005), says that the images are not metaphors but actual events in the director's life. For instance, the woman sitting in a bench with a drunk husband comes from a couple casually spotted by co-writer Lyudmila Petrushevskaya, the apple from a happy and tasty experience of Norstein eating an apple while walking in the street during the winter, and the old house from the actual house that he dwelled in during his childhood.

But she warns that "the film is about memory and ...is also constructed like a memory" and adds: "this is achieved by the construction of a set of parallel worlds: the old house with, nearby, an old streetlight and the setting for wartime scenes; the poet's world, where a fisherman's family also lives and a bull and a walker come to visit; the snowbound winter world of the boy and the crows; and the forest next to a highway, where the Little Wolf makes his home under the brittle willow bush. In short, we must appreciate bull, poet, wolf, house, snow and so on not like metaphors of something else, but like bricks in a palace, notes in a symphony."

Selecting it as one of the fifteen greatest "seeking" films of all time, directors Gregory and Maria Pears described it on their website www.cinemaseekers.com as follows: "Through its philosophical depths, its visionary language and its use of sound and music, it raises animation to the level of the very best art cinema. Norstein is a consummate artist, who insists on painting every frame himself. The result is the totally unique evocation of his spiritual world that could only have been rendered through animation - no other cinematic form would have sufficed."

Enigmatic, magically beautiful, and very moving, Tale of Tales is a work of art that you cannot figure out but can only experience just by letting it roll over you like a warm breeze.

The 27-minute film is available on You Tube with English subtitles.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b_q3WoYawNI