"Il racconto dei racconti" ("Tale of Tales" in English) is an adaptation of Giambattista Basile's works focusing on how desire and obsession lead to tragic outcomes. In one, a queen desires a child, so the king slaughters a sea monster and she eats the heart, but she focuses more on making the prince follow her orders than on letting him have a friendship. In another, a king spends all his time raising a flea, ignoring his daughter until he decides to marry her off. In the last one, a king is infatuated with a woman until he finds out that she's old, but then she puts on a facade.
If you've spent your life knowing only the sanitized versions of fairy tales, then Matteo Garrone's movie will be a real shock: no singing, no cute animals (but there are some scary ones), and no happily ever after. The dialogue is more concentrated in certain spots, allowing the action to be the main focus elsewhere. There's still a lot in the way of aesthetics - palaces, costumes, hairdos - but this is truly a dark fantasy. After all, it's not every movie in which a queen eats a sea monster's heart (with blood smeared all over her face). Not a masterpiece, but still an interesting look at fairy tales, much the way that "Into the Woods" is. I recommend it. A real feather in the cap of Salma Hayek, John C. Reilly, Toby Jones, Vincent Cassel and Shirley Henderson.
If you've spent your life knowing only the sanitized versions of fairy tales, then Matteo Garrone's movie will be a real shock: no singing, no cute animals (but there are some scary ones), and no happily ever after. The dialogue is more concentrated in certain spots, allowing the action to be the main focus elsewhere. There's still a lot in the way of aesthetics - palaces, costumes, hairdos - but this is truly a dark fantasy. After all, it's not every movie in which a queen eats a sea monster's heart (with blood smeared all over her face). Not a masterpiece, but still an interesting look at fairy tales, much the way that "Into the Woods" is. I recommend it. A real feather in the cap of Salma Hayek, John C. Reilly, Toby Jones, Vincent Cassel and Shirley Henderson.