BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Lidia Draper Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Portia Hilton Blistering performances.

Iko Iko Poetry in animation, so I would call this film, each image is emotion, images are repeated, emotions are repeated, a curse and a blessing. Music, shadows, movements, everything points to the state of the human soul. The wolf is the witness, the spirit of nature in us, it becomes Dante traveling through hell or paradise, shattered moments of human souls. Participating curiosity in each of our state, we are the wolf, life grows, we are the wolf, lives are destroyed. The moments of happiness, the elusive happiness, a reality that stitching dreams, sadness, soul leaking through every scene, quietly and toxic. The wolf is the narrator, he survives, he is witness in stories of our souls, in our lost mirror, by which we look at our misted life.Excellent film, my first meeting with Yuriy Norshteyn work. And what a movie. I'm really deeply touched by this masterpiece.

tieman64 Declared the "best animated film of all time" in 1984 by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the "greatest animated film of all time" at the 2002 Zagreb Festival, and "the second best animated film of all time" at the 2003 Laputah Animation Festival, Yuriy Norshteyn's "Tale of Tales" nevertheless, like most of the director's work, remains virtually unknown outside of Russia. Norshteyn's an "animator's animator", cherished mostly by those who share his profession."Tale of tales" revolves around a little grey wolf. The character's based on the wolf in "The Little Grey Wolf Will Come", a popular Russian lullaby. There the wolf was a figure of mischief who kidnaps babies. Here he is presented warmly (and even protects babies). Hugely symbolic, the film watches as the wolf bounces from one odd situation to the next, scenes arranged like a series of hazy dreams, memories or half-recollections, in which sequences seem to trigger successive memory sequences. In this regard the film heavily resembles Tarkovsky's "The Mirror". Its plot contains three overlapping sections, one of which focuses on memories, the other upon the "contemporary" world, and the other upon a happy, idealised dream world. The film shifts fluidly between these three worlds, and presents a symbolic portrait of Russia, spanning from the 19th century, through to the Civil Wars of the 1920s, to the post war period of Norshteyn's youth and finally to the 1970s.Most of what the film depicts will fly over the heads of those unfamiliar with Russian history. One must that Stalinist socialist realism severely restricted the space in which creative intellectuals could operate. Symbolism, with its emphasis on the metaphysical, the irrational and the mystical, was then seized upon by many Russian artists, who sought to free themselves from socialist realism's straightforward, pragmatic purpose of disseminating the Communist message. For this reason the state sought to ban even showings of "Tale of Tales", but public protests and strategic editing by Norshteyn prevented this from happening. Still, much of the film deals with national inferiority complexes, the effects of social and technological changes and the various freedoms which Russia, still ruled by autocracy, lacked. While the West was typically painted, in Russia, as an ageing and degenerate place, mired in materialism and an overdeveloped sense of rationalism unanchored to any higher truth, Norshteyn's film, while not celebrating the West, questions whether Russia is destined to deliver itself or even others from various debilitations. The film's final point is fairly simple: the belief that eternal happiness is not found in state ideology but in family life, and that fulfilment comes from within and not from the involvement in the building of communal societies. In the way he celebrates the everyday, the mundane, promotes an individualistic approach to locating happiness, Norshteyn is openly defiant of the collectivist spirit of socialist realism. As the Soviet Union crumbled, Norshteyn would later question the position he takes in this film.Of course unless one reads the film's barrage of very abstract images - old wooden chairs, rejected sewing machines, Napoleon hats on adults and kids (tyranny seeding the future), crumbling communal apartment buildings, lines of cars speeding away from old Russia and into new Russia, flaming apartments etc – this message flies over the heads of most who see the film. What one chiefly appreciates is therefore the film's unusual mood, with its primitive shapes and shadows, its Bunraku doll-theatre visuals, its rough-hewn style, its hand-made charm, its aura of ink, oils and card, its unique lighting and "depth effects" and its powerful, mysterious and creepy quality. You've never seen anything quite like this, thanks largely to a fairly unique process used by Norshteyn. Unlike most animators, he utilises a technique in which cards are lit with practical lights and in which different segments of each animated "cell" are "stuck" to different, independently moving planes of glass. This lends his films a fairly sophisticated sense of three dimensional depth, and of flickering, tangible light, both of which bely Norshteyn's primitive shapes.9/10 – Worth two viewings.

lixinovich 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.

thecygnet In most people's head the animation film is connected to Disney movies or to Japanese manga animation films, which are very hip nowadays. But everyone seems to overlook Russian animators. The most influential of them is Yuri Norstein, whose timeless masterpiece was awarded at the festival of animation films in Los Angeles in 1984 and at many other film festivals throughout the world. But why is this short half-an-hour movie so beautiful?Firstly, because Norstein has a matchless visual style. I expected something special after I've read about the film and before I saw it but what I got is something extraordinary: breathtaking pictures, fantastically clever use of mixed media, fine classical music. Secondly, because of the complex, symbol-ridden story, which is rooted in the Russian mythology. The story is about childhood innocence, the loss of the loved ones and the duty of the artist. It's very European, very Eastern-European and because I'm from Hungary and our past is very similar, this animation film is much closer to me than the American or Japanese ones.