Blancanieves

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),...
REAL MOVIE NEWS REVIEW
Even though it was released in 2011, there is no way of reviewing Blancanieves today without making comparison to the Best Picture winner from two years ago, The Artist. Both are modern silent films which attempt the appearance of being much older than they are, for no clear reason.

With The Artist, it was a silent film about the difficulties a silent movie star had with the advent of sound, something which we only fully understand with the film's only spoken words at the film's conclusion. Blancanieves, on the other hand, has no clear reason beyond novelty for being made as a silent film. This doesn't make it a bad film, although it is somewhat inexplicably stylistic in these retro film choices.

In addition to the silent-film style, the narrative is borrowed from the familiar tale of "Snow White," with all magical elements removed. Taking place in 1920s Seville, the movie utilizes bullfighting into the storyline, while keeping all of the classic elements of...

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