The Little Grey Wolf Will Come (1979)

Distant, well-worn memories of childhood are inhabited by a little gray wolf. Through astonishing imagery, the memory of all of Russia is depicted.

Director:

Yuri Norstein (as Yu. Norstein)

Writers:

Lyudmila Petrushevskaya (as L. Petrushevskaya), Yuri Norstein (as Yu. Norstein)

Star:

Aleksandr Kalyagin

2 wins.

Cast

Cast overview:
Aleksandr Kalyagin	...	Little Grey Wolf (voice)

Storyline

A reflection of Russian history and memory. Norstein creates a visual emotional response to a changing Russia, followed in the eyes of the Little Grey Wolf spying on various people's lives, and giving an insight on Russian culture in the 20th Century.

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Plot Keywords:

wolf | despair | hope | destruction | unrest | 

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Genres:

Animation | Short

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Details

Country:

Soviet Union

Language:

Russian

Release Date:

1979 (Soviet Union)

Also Known As:

Tale of Tales

Filming Locations:

Former USSR

Company Credits

Production Co:

Soyuzmultfilm

Technical Specs

Runtime:

29 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The creator of the film broke the tradition - he took as a basis the sketch's style, close to Picasso's graphic works or Pushkin's ink drawings. As a result, a balance was formed between fantastic conventionality and natural organicity.

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Connections

Featured in Animated Century (2003)

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Soundtracks

Utomlyonnoe solntse
Written by Jerzy Petersburski
Russian lyrics by Iosif Alvek
Performed by Aleksandr Tsfasman

User Reviews

Memory and Emotion

I must discuss the Russian Yuri Norstein's stunning "Tale of Tales". Like the films of another great Russian filmmaker, Andrei Tarkovsky, this film is about memory and nostalgia. The uses of various techniques of animation, primarily cutouts, not only let us see Norstein's memories, but also help illustrate their dream-like qualities. There are events in this film that, taken literally, could not have happened. However Norstein represents these memories metaphorically, thereby making their emotional impact greater than were he to simply illustrate his memories in a straight forward narrative.

There are a couple of moments that reflect the above-mentioned statement that I feel I must include in this entry. I loved the scene where the little boy is standing in the snow eating an apple , looking up at some crows on a tree branch. The boy then appears on the branch, buddies up with the crows and shares his apple with them. This is a great, moving, but non-sentimental image that lets us feel the child's desire for friendship. Just after that, his father, whose Napoleon hat identifies him as a tyrant, yanks him out of his daydream. The little boy at first struggles, but then a little Napoleon hat appears on his head and he marches in file behind his dad. This scene reminded me of the Disney WWII era short "Education for Death", in that it also is about childhood innocence being destroyed by adults conditioning their behavior. But where "Education." was a didactic propaganda tool, "Tale of Tales" simply shows how sad and unfortunate it is for adults to do that to children, and illustrates it in such a poetic way.