This refers to silent films in the 21st century. When the recent Academy Award winner for Best Picture "The Artist" rose to fame, I had hopes we'd get maybe one or two quality silent from now on every year. Unfortunately it does not look that way, but at least we got "Blancanieves", a silent fantastic surreal corrida-inspired version of the famous Snow White tale and certainly the most "different" version of the story you'll ever see. Spain submitted it to the Oscars last year and even if its success and appreciation wasn't as big as "The Artist"'s one year earlier, that shall take nothing away from its quality. It ended up as the big winner at the Goyas, the Spanish film awards, with wins or nominations in pretty much every category including the Grand Prize and Maribel Verdu's performance as the evil stepmother.
Another thing in favor of silent films these days is that it basically needs nothing but the intertitles translated to be understood everywhere around the planet and "Blancanieves" doesn't even have too many intertitles. My favorite scene of the film was the one with Snow White still as a girl finding her father in the wheelchair and dancing with him. A truly emotional moment of movie magic and the wonderful choice of music (one of the few parts of the film that included singing) even elevated the dancing scene. That being said the score is good from start to finish. I also liked the song choice during the ending credits. Another good scene was the hunter's depiction of his love-hate relationship with Snow-White in that scene after he's told by the stepmom to kill the girl. The most heartbreaking scene was possibly the one with Snow White's chicken when she was still a little girl. My possibly least favorite scene (and that was almost the only one I didn't really like) was the stepmother's handing of the foul apple to Snow White. One of the movie's big strengths was the way they adapted the story with many interesting aspects, like everything involving the dwarfs for example, one being her love interest, the other being completely against her or how they ear drag or get beaten up by the bulls in some kind of freak show. Anyway, I wish the apple scene would have been handled differently with some kind of creative touch other than being pretty much the same one as in the original story only at a bullfighter arena.
Now this is where the bullfighting aspect should be addressed. By now, it's a tradition which is disapproved of almost everywhere around the planet mostly due to the cruelty against animals and rightly so. Taking this into account, Berger probably did a fine job here and you couldn't be more sensitive on the matter I think than he was with everybody waving their tissues at some point to spare the bull after the big fight. Even if you are the toughest opponent to bullfighting, you probably won't object against the inclusion of the subject as a crucial part here, especially if there's not really a political message in it and if there is one, it's more of a reasonable one as with the scene I previously described.
All in all, it's a film that I definitely recommend. A must-see for those who love early silent movies or those who grew up watching the traditional Snow White and still a good watch for people in the mood to see a somewhat different film. And finally, especially thumbs up for director Pablo Berger, an impressive effort from him here given "Blancanieves" is only his second feature film and his first is already from 2003.
Another thing in favor of silent films these days is that it basically needs nothing but the intertitles translated to be understood everywhere around the planet and "Blancanieves" doesn't even have too many intertitles. My favorite scene of the film was the one with Snow White still as a girl finding her father in the wheelchair and dancing with him. A truly emotional moment of movie magic and the wonderful choice of music (one of the few parts of the film that included singing) even elevated the dancing scene. That being said the score is good from start to finish. I also liked the song choice during the ending credits. Another good scene was the hunter's depiction of his love-hate relationship with Snow-White in that scene after he's told by the stepmom to kill the girl. The most heartbreaking scene was possibly the one with Snow White's chicken when she was still a little girl. My possibly least favorite scene (and that was almost the only one I didn't really like) was the stepmother's handing of the foul apple to Snow White. One of the movie's big strengths was the way they adapted the story with many interesting aspects, like everything involving the dwarfs for example, one being her love interest, the other being completely against her or how they ear drag or get beaten up by the bulls in some kind of freak show. Anyway, I wish the apple scene would have been handled differently with some kind of creative touch other than being pretty much the same one as in the original story only at a bullfighter arena.
Now this is where the bullfighting aspect should be addressed. By now, it's a tradition which is disapproved of almost everywhere around the planet mostly due to the cruelty against animals and rightly so. Taking this into account, Berger probably did a fine job here and you couldn't be more sensitive on the matter I think than he was with everybody waving their tissues at some point to spare the bull after the big fight. Even if you are the toughest opponent to bullfighting, you probably won't object against the inclusion of the subject as a crucial part here, especially if there's not really a political message in it and if there is one, it's more of a reasonable one as with the scene I previously described.
All in all, it's a film that I definitely recommend. A must-see for those who love early silent movies or those who grew up watching the traditional Snow White and still a good watch for people in the mood to see a somewhat different film. And finally, especially thumbs up for director Pablo Berger, an impressive effort from him here given "Blancanieves" is only his second feature film and his first is already from 2003.