Blancanieves

Plot synopsis:
At the beginning of the story, a queen sits sewing at an open window during a winter snowfall when she pricks her finger with her needle, causing three drops of red blood to drip onto the freshly fallen white snow on the black windowsill. Then, she says to herself, "How I wish that I had a daughter that had skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony." Some time later, the queen gives birth to a baby daughter whom she names Snow White, but dies shortly thereafter.
A year later, Snow White's father, the king, takes a new wife, who is very beautiful, but a wicked and vain woman. The new queen possesses a magic mirror, which she asks every morning, "Magic mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?" The mirror always replies: "My queen, you are the fairest in the land." The queen is always pleased with that, because the magic mirror never lies. But as Snow White grows up, she becomes more beautiful each day and even more beautiful than the queen, and when the queen asks her mirror, it tells her that Snow White is the fairest.
This gives the queen a great shock. She becomes envious, and from that moment on, her heart turns against Snow White, whom the queen grows to hate increasingly with time. Eventually, the angry queen orders a huntsman to take Snow White into the deepest woods to be killed. As proof that Snow White is dead, the queen demands that he returns with her lungs and liver. The huntsman takes Snow White into the forest. After raising his knife, he finds himself unable to kill her and he spares her life. Snow White is told that her stepmother wants her dead and to get far away from the kingdom as possible. He instead brings the queen the heart of a wild animal.
After wandering through the forest, Snow White discovers a tiny cottage belonging to a group of seven dwarfs. Since no one is at home, she eats some of the tiny meals, drinks some of their wine, and then tests all the beds. Finally, the last bed is comfortable enough for her and she falls asleep. When the dwarfs return home, they immediately become aware that someone snuck in secretly, because everything in their home is in disorder. During their loud discussion about who snuck in, they discover the sleeping Snow White. She wakes up and explains to them what happened, and the dwarfs take pity on her and let her stay with them in exchange for housekeeping. They warn her to be careful when alone at home and to let no one in when they are away delving in the mountains.
Meanwhile, the queen asks her mirror once again: "Magic mirror in my hand, who is the fairest in the land?" The mirror replies: "My queen, you are the fairest here so true. But Snow White beyond the mountains at the Seven Dwarfs is a thousand times more beautiful than you". The queen is horrified to learn that the huntsman has betrayed her and that Snow White is still alive. Planning to kill Snow White, the queen disguises herself as an old peddler. The queen appears at the dwarfs' cottage and offers Snow White colorful, silky laced bodices and convinces Snow White to take the most beautiful laces as a present. Then the queen laces her up so tightly that Snow White faints, causing the queen to leave her for dead. But the dwarfs return just in time, and Snow White revives when the dwarfs loosen the laces.
The queen then consults her magic mirror again, and the mirror reveals Snow White's survival. The queen dresses as a comb seller and convinces Snow White to take a beautiful comb as a present. She brushes Snow White's hair with the poisoned comb and the girl faints again. She is again revived by the dwarfs when they remove the comb from her hair. When the mirror again indicates that Snow White still lives, the queen makes a third and final attempt on Snow White by disguising herself as a farmer's wife, an offering a poisoned apple to her. The girl is at first hesitant to accept it, so the queen cuts the apple in half, eating the white (harmless) half and giving the red poisoned half to Snow White. The girl eagerly takes a bite and falls into a state of suspended animation. This time, the dwarfs are unable to revive Snow White. Assuming that she is dead, they place her in a glass casket.
After a short period of time, a prince traveling through the land sees Snow White. He strides to her coffin. Enchanted by her beauty, he instantly falls in love with her. The seven dwarfs succumb to his entreaties to let him have Snow White. The moment he lifts the coffin to carry it away, the piece of poisoned apple falls from between her lips and Snow White awakens saying "Where am I?" The Prince then declares his love for her and soon a wedding is planned. Snow White and the prince invite everyone to come to their wedding party, including Snow White's stepmother.
Meanwhile, the queen, still believing that Snow White is dead, again asks her magic mirror who is the fairest in the land. The mirror says: "Thou, lady, art loveliest here, I ween; but lovelier far is the new-made queen", which enrages the queen. Not knowing that the Prince's bride is her stepdaughter, the queen arrives at the wedding and sees that the bride is Snow White, whom she thought dead. She chokes with rage, falls down, and dies. Snow White and the prince reign happily over the land for many, many years and sometimes traveling into the mountains and visiting the dwarfs, who had been so kind to Snow White.

Tags: cruelty, murder

Review:
Much effort was made to reproduce the look and tone of classic silent film down to the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, but the current technologies used in production added an extra snap, crackle, and pop.The story is Snow White, but set in the Seville of the 1920s: a girl, the daughter of a famous bullfighter, is raised by an evil stepmother.
Spanish cinema goers were treated to their very own version of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale that was directed by Pablo Berger who could have been inspired by the success of the French-American silent film, The Artist, as his version of the tale is also a silent one.Shot in glorious black-and-white (as was The Artist), the film looks and feels like an actual film from the silent era.
The simple style of Blancanieves hearkens back to the silent era of film and Berger has created a fanciful homage to those wonderful films of several yesteryears ago that have inspired countless filmmakers ever since.Berger's unique vision of Snow White takes place in southern Spain in the 1920s and features actress Maribel Verdu (Pan's Labyrinth, Y Tu Mama Tambien) as this version's wicked stepmother.
As the story goes, the young Carmen/Snow White (Macarena Garcia) flees the evil clutches of her mother and finds herself helped out along the way by a band of little people who travel the countryside and perform as a novelty act.
By Berger choosing to incorporate some of the darker elements of a classic Grimm tale, he has made this version the most successful of last year's three Snow White re-tellings.This is the fairest one of them all..
Coming directly in the footsteps of Oscar winner The Artist, this is another film that proves that Silent Film is not a derogatory term but rather leaves us to bring more not less of ourselves to what is a stunning film.Where Blacanieve triumphs is in its storytelling, its acting, and yes, its melodrama, which here works and makes us feel like we are really watching a Spanish film from the birth of Spanish cinema - the casting of the extras, and the attention to detail just adds to this sensation - and it really is a good watch from beginning to end.I used to watch films all the time, now I find most are so generic, uninspiring, and just plain dull, that I have almost lost the desire - but then you see a film like this and it restores your faith - a simply excellent film about love, passion, jealousy, and sadness..
Silent, black and white, expressionist, virtuoso in his classically vintage mise en scene, "Blancanieves" is a triumph of real cinema and invention, folk culture and Iberian poetry, a post-modern masterpiece in which the aesthetic of silent cinema – with its quotes and its expressive forms, the single power of pictures and musical score – it's not only an end, as it has been for the contemporary and more exalted "The Artist" (in which retro style was justified by the homage to old Hollywood), but a mean, a perfect mean, to tell a story: the usual one, by Grimm's brothers tiredly taken to screens so many times in so different ways, but here completely twisted, tipped over, in a Gothic, Spanish and extravagant version where Snow White and seven dwarfs are toreros, the set is Seville between '10s and '20s, and the usual Disney fable hearts and flowers go to hell in benefit of a dark tonality, a black humor and a grotesque taste which unchains an unstoppable series of stylistic, comical, poetic inventions, unpredictable as sensational.
Cinephile mannerism of Pablo Berger doesn't make lose the film in a style exercise, but helps to tell a black fairy tale, out of time, revolutionary and anarchic, which couldn't be represented some way else.
A bond of immediate emotion and narrative synthesis, which discovers in the arena a theater of all life sensation range: laugh, crying, show, anguish, childhood lightness and horrid adults' cruelty, the weight of past and memories, ghosts and returns, a little antique world in which good and evil, hate and love, jealousy and solidarity, clash and overturn in front of an enraptured, manipulated audience who asks for more, who wants to be thrilled, who gets touched, who has fun, and in the end asks grace for the bull.
This silent rendition of the classic Snow White tale rivals not only last year's The Artist but Disney's own essential version..
Although The Artist, the first Best Picture winner I've agreed with in a long time, took the mainstream by storm of its silent film renaissance style, Blancanieves is a similar revivial, if not as self-referential, and is on par with The Artist.
A silent movie, filmed in black & white, which moves the familiar Snow White fairytale to a bullfighter arena in Seville and spices it with some morbid and melodramatic themes.
it's hard to review this film without mentioning 'The Artist', the Oscar-winning silent movie from last year.
Furthermore , achieved Goya prizes as Won Goya : Best Actress , Maribel Verdú , Best New Actress , Macarena García , Best Costume Design , Best Cinematography , Kiko De La Rica , Best Original Score , Alfonso de Vilallonga , Best Screenplay , Pablo Berger , Best Original Song , Best Make-Up and Hairstyles , Best Production Design , Best New Actor, Emilio Gavira , Best Special Effects : Reyes Abades , Ferran Piquer , Best Production Manager , Josep Amorós , and Best Director .The motion picture was perfectly produced and stunningly directed by Pablo Berger , a very good Spanish movies director .
This modern silent enjoyed considerable success and internationally good reviews."Blancanieves" ( Snow White ) (2012),a film directed by Herr Pablo Berger, is also a modern silent but, due to problems with financing such a bizarre film project, "The Artist" won the race to movie theaters.
No doubt the two films will be compared in lengthy discussions complete with boring controversies which this Herr Von will leave to those interested in such trivial subjects."Blancanieves" is certainly a fascinating, mesmerizing, modern silent film, and is inspired by the famous German fairy tale collected by Brothers Grimm; Herr Berger transfers the story to Spain during the 20s of the last century.The film is primarily influenced by European masters, notably German Expressionism, and is full of astonishing aesthetics and visual techniques and creates a magical and dark atmosphere that suits perfectly the strange and sad story wherein our heroine will suffer the abandonment by her father and the anger of a stepmother, all against a background of the world of bullfighting and its many peculiar characters.
It is no mere pastiche.Deep Spain, namely the Andalucía region, is the setting and we have a star bullfighter who will die tragically, six dwarf toreadors in a travelling show, a wicked stepmother ( great Frau Maribel Verdú ) and a helpless heroine who is looking for protection and love ( what a sad ending, MEIN GOTT!!
The professional reviews for this were so ecstatic that I may have been a bit over-hyped, and felt a twinge of disappointment in seeing it, which is not to say I didn't enjoy itEntertaining and beautifully made, this is another modern black & while silent film, this one an adult re-telling of the Snow White myth.
And this black and white (silent) movie, might look good and have some nice comedic moments, but isn't a revelation whatsoever.
It was a movie with a very popular story and hence making a movie like this was a serious matter of creativity and bringing uniqueness into it.Here are the strong points about Blancanieves :1.The direction and overall film making:The direction was something to be inspired from.
The aspect about the direction that is to be appreciated and admired is the fact that the movie is being made black and white ,silent in the 2012 where the cinema is going 3D and IMAX.
But in this section ,two performances deserve special admiration that is Maribel Verdú for playing the role of cunning witch Encarna and Inma Cuesta for playing the role Carmen de Triana(Snow white).
I was quiet surprised yet delighted by the kind of sounds that were used and how they were giving the movie a unique and impressive feel.As far as disappointment from this movie goes, i just got a little bit of it in terms of taking black and white silent part to the next level and bringing more depth into the story.
It was amazing but followed the good old black and white silent classic movie pattern.
Laden with awards; entered as Best Foreign Language Film for the 2013 Oscars; it seems rather churlish to criticize Pablo Berger's silent retelling of the Snow White myth, bearing strong visual and stylistic parallels to Michel Hazanavicius's THE ARTIST (2011).And yet the film's overall impact is reduced by an uncertainty of tone.
Perhaps director Berger wants to make a veiled comment on the ways in which innocence is at once cherished yet abused in contemporary societies, but the sudden shifts of tone prove uneasy.On the other hand, BLANCANIEVES contains some stunning individual sequences, attesting to the director's abilities as a filmmaker; for example, the use of dissolves unifying past with the present, as the dead Antonio continues to affect Carmen's life, even after he has been thrown down the stairs by Doña Concha; or the moment when Doña Concha meets a grisly end at the bull-fighting venue, gored to death by an angry bull.
Based on the Snow White fairy tale (though it's at its best when it's not following that story closely), the film follows a young girl, Carmen, after her mother dies in childbirth and her father (Daniel Gimenez Cacho) is made a paraplegic in a bullfight.
If not, think again for here we have "Blancanieves", an elegant re-telling of "Snow White" set in the bull-fighting milieu of Seville circa the 1920's and done, yes, as a silent picture.It is, of course, ravishingly pretty, (Kiko De La Rica's black and white images are often breathtaking), and it's very well played, particularly by Maribel Verdu as the evil stepmother and by the great Angela Molina as the grandmother, but it's also something of a pointless novelty that could just as effectively been done in colour and with sound.
I certainly enjoyed it, (the director, Pablo Berger, does enough variants on the Snow White story to make it interesting), but I hope that this is the end of this kind of experimentation.
"Blancanieves" (literally Snow White in Spanish) places Snow White into 1920s Spain in black and white and classic silent film form.
Simultaneously, his wife dies during child birth, Snow White - Carmencita - is born, and his nurse, the evil step-mother-to-be, is by Antonio's side.
The way one scene melts into another was condemned in movies like Highlander and is arty now, because it's silent and black and white?
If you are expecting something along the lines of the Disney version of Snow White you are definitely in the wrong place.Blancanieves is definitely a twist on a tale, and it isn't a happier twist but it is a pleasure to watch.This film is charming, enjoyable and quite a bit of fun at times.
The score was impressive ranging from simple string instrumentals to more traditional Spanish music.While some of the effects were borderline ridiculous (the heads pasted onto the bodies of real bull fighters were so obvious I had to cringe), it had the right amount of cheese to really pull it off.The acting was superb all the way through and you knew exactly what was going on with each character at all times - a sure way to know that the cast were up to power.Highly recommended to any lovers of the Artist or any of the older silent movies..
I saw it in TV and regretted not having seen it when it was released in the cinema 3 years ago.It's a film full of imagination that shows not only in the black & white of its photography but in it's being a silent film.
I know that "The Artist" was first, but this one takes more risks being a drama that reaches peaks of tragedy in many moments.The best of it is, in my opinion, that you get not too involved in the story because it has light touches of black humor; besides, you know it's a very free version of and old children's tale so it is not meant to be realistic.Anyway the settings, locations and artistic direction are great and the cast is perfect, outstanding Maribel Verdú as the wicked step mother.
2012 clearly was the year of Snow White, with no less than 3 different well-financed and heavily promoted film versions of this fabulous and immortal fairy- tale originally created by the Grimm Brothers.
This Spanish silent film is the best version of Snow White I've seen till date; it really is 'The Fairest of them all'.
With proper story, impeccable acting, and an entrancing background score, one can do wonders.'The Artist' won a lot of acclaim and awards to bring back black & white silent style cinema, but Blancanieves' conception and production dates much back.
If 'The Artist' wasn't out first, being shown at Cannes (its roller-coaster ride of fame began there) and hadn't taken away all the spotlight for being the first post-modern B&W silent film, 'Blancanieves' might have received the respect and acclaim it deserved, because, in my opinion, both these movies are absolute masterpieces.Anyway, cinephiles shouldn't miss out on this.
He took the Snow White fairy tale and linked it with the Spanish culture and the Spanish traditions such as bullfights and bullfighters."Blancanieves" is a movie which in many moments of it makes you mixed feelings for everything that happens.
From one side we have Carmen (Macarena García) who is the daughter of Antonio Villalta and from the other side we have Antonio Villalta (Daniel Giménez Cacho) who is an old ruined bullfighter with his wife and stepmother of Carmen, Encarna (Maribel Verdú).Some points are the same as in fairy tale with dwarfs who save the life of Snow White but all of these are influenced by Spanish culture, that is something that makes this movie special and unique..
Three months later, writer- director Pablo Berger released Blancanieves, also a fantasy live-action based on the same German fairy tale.But three crucial elements separate Berger's version: a tribute to the 1920s, this Spanish production is told in the style of a black-and-white silent film.
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.
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.
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.
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.
An original take on the Grimm's fairy tale Snow White set in 20's Spain.
My assumption is that they tried making a movie like this because of the success the year before of "The Artist" (which too the Best Picture Oscar).The story is essentially "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" re- imagined.
This Spanish film was one of the latest to be added into the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, I had no idea it was a silent film or based on the fairytale Snow White, so I was really looking forward to it.
The dwarfs have perfected their performance for the crowd, but they are unaware that amnesia suffering Carmen has gained natural bullfighting skills from her father, so she becomes part of their act and travelling act, and in doing so become famous, they even give her the nickname "Blancanieves", or "Snow White", but they are unaware who she really is.
The same year as the release of The Artist, this film set in 1920s Spain is a great homage, the new twist on the Snow White story is clever, Garcia is pretty and good as the title character, and Verdú is superb as the evil stepmother, this film has no dialogue whatsoever and relies on the great music of Alfonso de Vilallonga, and with the black and white colour and masterful imagery it works really well, a fantastic silent fantasy drama.
Blancanieves : Snow White told through silent movie.
Although she lost her memory when she was almost killed by Genaro, she soon shows her bullfighting skill to impress the dwarfs and others, and her popularity as "Blancanieves"(it means "Snow White" in Spanish) quickly rises while our bitchy stepmother is infuriated to learn that the girl is still alive.The story itself is an engaging fairy tale with humor and heart, and the director/writer Pablo Berger effectively presents it through the painstaking recreation of the ambiance of the silent films during the 1920s.