Tarantino, having seen "The Tale of Tales" in the Moscow Cinema Museum, asked: "Why haven't I seen this film before? Why is it shown so little in the world?"
"I've watched 'The Tale of Tales' at least fifty times, and yet the mystery remains.
It was the union of the ununifiable. A symphony with various themes. One character traversed the entire film—the Wolfie, a small creature, a child of war. An eternal soul, freely visiting the golden age, a peaceful abode by the shore, where a happy fisherman lives with his family, where a (silent) chubby child lies in a stroller, and his little sister in a ball gown and hat jumps rope alongside Picasso's bull...
Where Yura himself and his wife Francesca eternally live under the plane tree, the wife washes clothes, and he catches fish, and they always dine outdoors, with their cat Murka, and their guests—a bald poet with a lyre and a random young man, free from material things, a pensive passerby.
Wolfie also lives where the modern city sparkles at night, with roaring cars on the highway. Where pre-war girls and their suitors eternally dance like moths under a lantern, and the tango of the 1940s always plays—'The Tired Sun'...
Where men always go to war. Where few return from the war. Where the wet lilac bushes around the memorial table shed tears over a glass of vodka, left for the fallen and covered with a piece of bread, according to Russian tradition. My God, how I cried every time I watched this film!
Now it’s shown on television almost every Victory Day anniversary. But back then, do you remember, Yura? It was immediately banned: 'The people won’t understand this!' We exchanged phone calls. To save the film, someone suggested writing an off-screen narration. I tried—it didn’t work. It was impossible to do. I got angry, being an experienced banned author. I was often advised to do things, like give a story a happy ending. Then it will be published. Do you remember, Yura, what I told you?
— Yura! This film will be in all the film textbooks! Don’t worry and don’t change anything! That’s it. I’m hanging up now!
That was the only way out.
But then a miracle happened. Do you remember, you called me at the beginning of November?
— Lyusya! — (you said, embarrassed) — I was awarded the State Prize.
Norshtein, artist Yarbousova, and cinematographer Zhukovsky were awarded the highest prize of the Soviet state! For their animated films!
It was a miracle. I burst out laughing. We laughed on the phone for a long time, but we should have cried with happiness. Francesca made herself an amazing dress out of inexpensive woolen shawls. You, Yura, if I recall, had nothing to wear. You even went without a tie.
Speaking at the Kremlin, you thanked your parents (not the party, not the government, like the others). I wrote a little rhyme: 'The laureate and the laureatess sit in socks with a hole in the heel.'
'The Tale of Tales' was allowed."
Afterword
In 1984, in Los Angeles (USA), the film "The Tale of Tales" was recognized as the best film of all times.
In June 2002, the Zagreb Animation Festival published the results of an international four-year survey of film experts: ‘The best animated film of all time is "The Tale of Tales"‘.
In 2003, in Tokyo (Japan), the film "Hedgehog in the Fog" was recognized as the best film of all time and people, with "The Tale of Tales" named second.
