FeistyUpper If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

tavm Anyone who's read many of my comments here know what an animation buff I am. So it was as one that I decided to check out R. O. Blechman's The Soldier's Tale from my local library. Based on compositions by Igor Stravinsky and a popular Russian folktale, this concerns a soldier's post-war trials and tribulations after making a deal with the devil to trade his beloved violin for a book that guides him to his future. Various styles of animation come together to form a mostly cohesive whole with Fred Mogubgub, Bill Littlejohn, and Tissa David among the animators. Among the voices, Max von Sydow provides his charming self as Satan. Might be confusing at times but The Soldier's Tale never gets boring. Well worth seeing for animation fans.

RobT-2 "A Soldier's Tale" is based upon the theater piece by the composer Igor Stravinsky and the playwright C. F. Ramuz, concerning a soldier who, returning home from war, chances upon a stranger who offers to buy his violin. This stranger turns out to be the Devil, and the violin an avatar of the soldier's soul, and most of the rest of the story concerns the soldier's attempts to regain his violin/soul.As animated by a team headed by the cartoonist R. O. Blechman, the story has been tinkered with somewhat--introducing some elements not in Ramuz's text--while retaining its essential spirit. I don't think Stravinsky, who conceived the work to begin with, would have disapproved. As he himself wrote, "My original idea was to transpose the period and style of our play to any time and 1918 (the year of the work's composition), and to many nationalities and none, though without destroying the religio-cultural status of the Devil....in fact, I still encourage producers to localize the play and, if they wish, to dress the soldier in a uniform temporally remote from, but sympathetic to, the audience."Blechman's style of line-drawing transfers surprisingly well to animation; the coloring has the pale look of watercolors, and the characters are wonderfully expressive (with the music heightening emotions at critical points), minimally drawn though they are. The use of perspective is spectacular enough to make me wonder what "A Solder's Tale" would look like on the big screen. Some of Blechman's designs recall Terry Gilliam's use of stylishly retro technological imagery, adding to the sense of wonder generated by the original story.I first encountered Blechman's "A Soldier's Tale" by way of the ending, which was excerpted and used in the documentary series "Masters of Animation". Even out of context the excerpt just blew me away, and it retained every bit of its impact when I finally saw the complete work a few years later. While not for everybody, this version of "A Soldier's Tale" should be far better known than it is. Long out-of-print on VHS, Blechman's "A Soldier's Tale" is finally available on DVD, and well worth the time for serious animation fans to seek it out.

Don_Mac A must for Stravinsky fans. This is a great animated adaptation of Stravinsky's short piece "A Soldier's Tale" ("L'Histoire du Soldat"). The basic plot is about a battle between the soldier and the devil (taken from Russian folk tales). Its very creatively drawn and the music is, of course, excellent.

msa-3 This is a brilliantly animated take on Stravinsky's ballet.Tissa David's animation gives the show a solidity, character and a presence that takes it above others. Fred Burns' animation gives it a lyricism that can't be matched. And Fred Mogubgub's animation gives it an abstraction and a surrealism that takes it beyond the world of the imagination and gives it a life of its own. It's a beautiful film. Though a bit confusing in its storytelling it's thrilling to watch just for the graphics and the music. Deservedly won its EMMY Award in 1977. Kudos to R.O. Blechaman for initiating it and pulling it all together.