Blancanieves

Clever retelling of classic tale
There is an implicit understanding between author/auteur and his audience. For example, Edgar Allen Poe will give you all sorts of dreadful things, but he does it in an imaginative manner and makes you think. Fairy tales present us with terrible images (kids being baked in ovens, women being swallowed) but promise us happy endings after all is said and done. So when you have a re-telling of the Snow White story, we expect there to be some savage images, but in the end our long suffering princess will eventually triumph, get the prince, and live, as they say, happily ever after.

If you're one of those people who thirst for the happy ending, stop here. This original and imaginative version of the Snow White tale gives us many things, but it doesn't provide that happy ending we've come to expect, and that may turn off many viewers.

OK. If you can put aside the breach of the covenant between author/audience, then this film is certainly worth watching. Its finest...
A Beguiling Contemporary Fairy Tale From Spain: A Silent Movie For Film Lovers
Despite its warm critical reception in its native country of Spain, I still wasn't overly excited to check out Pablo Berger's "Blancanieves." I'm not sure why exactly. An updating of Snow White done as a silent film set in the world of bullfighting: perhaps it seemed a bit too high concept, a little too precious for its own good. But knowing that the movie had won the 2013 Goya Award for Best Film (Spain's equivalent of the Academy Award) and was selected as their official Oscar entry for Best Foreign Language Film, I felt compelled to check it out. Boy, am I glad that I didn't listen to myself! From the opening scenes, I was captivated by this dark and lovely tale. Somehow it manages to be true to the essence of the Grimm fairy tale on which it was based while serving as an eloquent homage to a movie era gone by. In equal measures, the experience is lush and romantic, dark and scary, and fantastical and whimsical. With minimal dialogue (on classic silent movie screen cards), Berger...
Fairy tale for adults!
astonishingly beautiful cinematography and gorgeous music...breathes new life into an old story through its use of new and clever twists.
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