User Reviews

This film on three technological advancements of the 20th century: the Hindenburg, an atomic test at Bikini Atoll, and cloning. Three Tales ultimately contains a message regarding technology and life. While the film generally succeeds in conveying this message, flaws reduce this to a slightly above average movie.

By being presented in movie style that essentially is supposed to invoke feelings that it is art, the Three Tales sets large expectations. The visual style is a montage of historical footage, interviews, and various stylistic overlays designed to create a feeling of art. This is generally interesting, but becomes tedious. The music which plays a main role in the film is mostly acceptable and adds to the experience as it should, but it also produces moments that seem out of place either because of oddity or because it seems laughable. Three Tales is also divided into three chapters where they sequentially build on the level of the philosophical meaning and thereby becomes increasingly complex. The first sequence which is the Hindenburg remains nearly devoid of any message except conveying tragedy (which is what anyone thinks of the Hindenburg) while the last sequence focuses on cloning and all of the usual ethical and societal questions on the subject. This juxtaposition of devoid from meaning in the first sequence and the deep meaning in the last seems inappropriate and the film would have been better if the first sequence contained some meaning more related to the central theme.

Overall the film attempts interesting stylistic techniques and usually succeeds, but it is plagued by moments that feel out of place and tedious.

This documentary opera looks at the dangers of technological development through the twentieth century. "Progress" is viewed as a selfish and destructive phenomenon. Music of Steve Reich accompanies the entire film, and the interviews used in the movie are rhythmically incorporated into the music. This is a very interesting effect. I think the music is very cool, but it can sometimes seem a bit emotionally sterile, especially when accompanying horrifying and depressing footage. However, Reich's minimalist style seems to mimic the heartless and determined technological advancements that humans would appear to be making in the last hundred years. This film's plot could not be spoiled, since the plot is almost nonexistent. A warning to viewers: while there is no extreme violence in the movie, it is not a feel-good movie, and does not end on a positive note. A note about the music: it is written for tenor and soprano voices, percussionists, keyboards, and strings. This is all written in a chamber setting. The music combines these acoustic sounds with electronic sounds and effects.

Three Tales suggests scientific achievements such as cloning, and investing our trust and emotions in Artificial Intelligence may have the potential to be just as disastrous as the Hindenburg, and just as dangerous as the atomic bomb.

Three seemingly unrelated events paint a picture of human ingenuity run amuck. Three Tales begs the question, just because we CAN do something SHOULD we do it.

The Hindenburg, Nuclear Bomb Tests, and the Cloning of Animals leads into the Artificial Intelligence segment which should at that point in the film incite a little terror in the viewer

Three Tales is way ahead of its time in predicting the possibility that human being just might invent themselves out of existence.

I usually like challenging, intriguing, and intellectual pieces of art. This is not one of those. The visuals are boring and give no message. The music is horrible, tinny, digital, and discordant. Not in a good artful way. Just bad. The same images and discordant "music" over and over.

I wanted to like this film. I tried but couldn't find any redeeming qualities. All I found was a splitting headache. It wasn't entertaining nor intellectually stimulating. What were the filmmakers trying to accomplish? I recommend this film only to masochists who enjoyed Lou Reed's "Metal Machine Music".

Please give this film a chance. I find it strange, to say the least, that difficult and intelligent films such as "Three Tales" seem to attract those IMDb reviewers who are incapable of understanding them. This is an important and complex cinematic journey which not only demands that the viewer pay close heed, but that he/she actually think about what he is seeing and hearing. Reich's operatic score is brilliant, but he has been producing fascinating pieces like this one for over 30 years. The director has fashioned a film which results in an absolutely mesmerizing counterpoint and complement to the Reich score. The three events in the film: the destruction of the Hindenburg, the obliteration of the isle of Bikini by nuclear testing, and scientists who discuss the cloned sheep Dolly (interspersed with a synthesized-speech robot which can learn from its environment), all bear powerful witness to the probability that we have not yet evolved far enough morally to deal with the consequences of what we can produce technologically.

A footnote: not many people are aware that Dolly was 'euthanized,' when she was about five years of age, I believe, due to morbid obesity, advanced arthritis, and severe gastrointestinal disorders.

Just saw this on the IFC.

This movie is like a bad drug: It looks good at the beginning, and sucks you in. the more you watch, the less you get. By the end you realize that you got

absolutely nothing at all from it, except a strange experience that you would have been better off without.

What a laughable waste of time. The movie basically has nothing to say, and

stretches what could have been an interesting 12 minutes of information and

photos into a long, drawn out waste of time.

the soundtrack is like a REALLY bad German opera (but in English.) All sorts of loud noises, musical exclamation points, choirs singing in oh-so-serious tones, saying the same thing over and over and over.....

As the first reviewer said, there is no plot. None. No message, no point. Are these three technologies bad? Evil? Necessary but dangerous? Who knows?

Who cares? Certainly not this film nor its makers.

By the end, you won't care either (if you make it to the end.) You'll just be glad we have the technology of a remote-control that can conveniently change

channels.

If you start watching this, and think it's visually intriguing, though slow moving, and that it will likely get better any minute... Forget it. It never does.

You know those crazy people who stand in the middle of Times Square,

preaching that the end of the world is near? Well, watching this movie is pretty much like watching one of those crazy people, shouting the same thing over

and over, for 90 minutes.