Blancanieves

2012 fairy tale

Rating: 16/20 (Mark: 17/20)

Plot: It's exactly like the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs except it's got bullfighting.

I definitely appreciated that, as one of those modern silent movies, this stuck to the aesthetics of 1920's cinema. Camera angles, transitions, and classic-style music contributed to make this seem like a lost and very weird silent film. The Spanish flavor, including the original twist on the fairy tale to make the titular protagonist a bullfighter, almost makes you forget that this is even based on the fairy tale. Well, maybe until the little people come along. I probably could have used more of them, especially the one who looked like Patton Oswalt. Maybe that was Patton Oswalt. He's not exactly a large person, and with modern movie wizardry, they could have easily Hobbitfied him anyway. There's a too-lengthy exposition and a some editing during a couple scenes that made this a little too artsy-fartsy at times, but this is otherwise a beautiful film with a really touching ending that is not at all spoiled by every other version of the fairy tale that you've seen or read. I really liked how the plot wasn't at all dependent on title cards. It's the type of silent film with a story that can be understood with just the imagery, and although that might be partly because we sort of know the story, the visual storytelling is also great. The evil queen was almost sexy and, as a bonus, a little bit kinky. I thought the guy who played the dad gave the best performance, especially during one touching scene, and his funeral was great because it gave my brother and I an idea for our own funerals--allowing people to pose for pictures with our corpses. C'mon, you know that's the next logical step after selfies anyway, isn't it? I went to a wedding a few weekends ago where they had one of those photobooth things allowing guests to dress up and pose for a quartet of hilarious shots. Mark and I have agreed to make this happen for whoever dies first, and putting it in the blog probably makes it legally binding. But back to the movie. It's got some sweet little people action including one in drag and one with an eye patch, and if you ever watched Disney's version of Snow White and thought that it could use more S&M, chickens or goats, or something very close to lesbian necrophilia, this is probably a movie you should check out.