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| From http://www.impawards.com/intl/misc/ 2015/posters/il_racconto_dei_racconti.jpg |
Director: Matteo Garrone
Screenplay: Edoardo Albinati; Ugo
Chiti; Matteo Garrone; Massimo Gaudioso
Cast: Salma Hayek (as Queen of
Longtrellis); Vincent Cassel (as King of Strongcliff); John C. Reilly (as King
of Longtrellis); Toby Jones (as King of Highhills); Shirley Henderson (as Imma);
Hayley Carmichael (as Dora); Bebe Cave (as Violet, Princess of Highhills); Christian
Lees (as Elias, Prince of Longtrellis); Jonah Lees (as Jonah)
Synopsis: Based on the Pentamerone,
a collection fairy tales by Giambattista
Basile which include the origins of such stories like Rapunzel, a
multi-national cast depicts three tales set within a single fantasy kingdom. 1)
The attempt of the King and Queen of Longtrellis (Reilly and Hayek) to use
a mythical fertility ritual which has lasting complications when the royal son Elias
(Christian Lees) is born alongside the son of a maid Johan (Jonah Lee) who is like a brother to him,
causing bad blood between Johan's existence and his mother. 2) The lustful King
of Strongcliff (Cassel) who falls in
love with a woman's singing voice, mistaking an elderly woman Dora (Carmichael) as a young maiden just from
voice alone, something she and her sister Imma (Henderson) attempt to take advantage of. 3) The king of Highhills (Jones) whose obsession with cultivating
a giant flea as a pet leads to disastrous consequences for his daughter Violet
(Cave), shattering her fairy tale
view of princesses being romanced and rescued by heroic knights. |
| From http://flix.gr/en/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/tales-2.jpg |
Fairy tales have become more of
an obsession of mine when I realise how deep their roots lay in storytelling, how
they can be far more vivid and imaginative then I presumed them to be. As a kid
I naturally grew up with fairy tales as many readers would have, but now I feel
I can appreciate them even more as an adult. With this is it also becomes prevalent
how they have been watered down especially when it comes to fantasy cinema - regardless
of one's opinion of Tale of Tales,
it's existence is justified and worthy by showing how clichéd Hollywood fantasy
cinema can be in comparison, this film showing the flexibility fairy tales have
especially as I can compare this to such examples I've from around the world,
like from Russia, and see the structures sharing similar traits to the original
tales. In Tale of Tales' case as
well it's an emphasis that fairy tales are for adults as well as children, and
it's not merely because of the blood and nudity either but in how these tales
in their exaggerations depict humanity and its contradictions.It seemed such a
strange tangent for Italian director Matteo
Garrone to have made this film when it premiered at the 2015 Cannes Film Festival considering his
reputation was sealed by Gomorrah (2008),
an ultra realistic inspection of the Camorra crime syndicate based on a
non-fiction novel. However when he's explicitly dealing with a work of Italian
heritage, regardless of it being in English with a multi-national cast, the prevailing
tone of stories dealing with the folly of mankind, especially the kings and
queens of this tale causing grief out of their boredom, do find strange
connective tissue with Gomorrah and
the modern day even if the material is incredibly fantastical.
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| From http://cdn.collider.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/tales-of-tales.jpg |
Comparisons could be made to Walerian Borowczyk's films such as Goto, Isle of Love (1968) but it also
feels somewhat out of place as the fetishishtic tone of Borowczyk's work for the material world is not here. Instead Tale of Tales is an argument that
realism in modern world cinema can work, winning me over when it's used right
even for fantastical material. In this context, the natural light and real
countryside locations sit perfectly with the sea monsters and ogres that exist
within its world. Whilst I first pined for the aesthetic of sixties and
seventies fantasy cinema, here the realism is both enticing and helped by the
fact that the film willingly dives into its fantastical material, merely
bringing a grubby reality to its scenes of peasant huts and castles which adds
to its tone rather than detracts. A better comparison would be Alexander Sokurov's Faust (2011) especially as, while CGI is necessary, Tale of Tales gladly embraces practical
effects, the unnerving nature of rubber and its tactile prescience felt here. How
it was actually done I can't say, but the moment you witness a man in an old
diver's suit in the prescience of a giant sea monster underwater its stunning;
even if it's done with CGI the creature looks real and is accompanied on land
by a real set prop that's incredible, a giant albino water serpent straight out
of a Ray Harryhausen or Eastern
European movie than a bland blockbuster. Despite only a fifteen certificate in
the UK, this physical reality allows Tale
of Tales to be explicit without because grimy in tone, a faithful
translation of the kind of "uncensored" fairy tales of yore were
flesh is depicted as matter of fact, acts of violence even against monsters is
nasty, and there's no qualms in dealing with gristly concerns.
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| From http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qDW0hcoyekg/VkP2ithfGfI/AAAAAAAAZDM/ onapvEB-0Js/s1600/twins-tale%2Bof%2Btales-movie%2Breview- 2015-AFI-theater%2Bwhore-dante%2Bross-danterants-blogspot-com.jpg |
Helping the film is that none of
the trio of stories is weaker than the other, the film cutting between them
over a certain time frame. None of them end as you'd expect, another aspect of
fairy tale lost in most modern film adaptations depicted here - that even if
they're only a few pages long these tales can traverse a very long winding
narrative which takes very unexpected directions, a tiny paragraph enough to
bring in subplots and changes in tone that drastically change the story from
its beginning just from the medium's economic use of pacing. Rather than the Joseph Cambell's heroes' journey theory,
which has ruined modern cinema because screenplays over use its template, Tale of Tales for anyone wanting a
decent comparison is closer to how role playing games can drastically change
courses in its plotting to the end, allowing for unpredictability even if their
endings are obvious from the beginning, tales here while short that take on
numerous different events in their narratives which go against predictable
storytelling. With this there is both a visceral nature to the material, the
skin of a flea literally felt in a major plot point, and whilst it's not to the
extremity of the film like Hard To Be A
God (2013) in terms of absorption into its world, a logic exists in Tale of Tales helped by its sprawling
plots where its felt fully, a medieval European of travelling carnival
performers and fountains spurting from trees feeling more alive and detailed
from the tangents.
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| From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/content/dam /film/CannesFestivalPics/bebetales-xlarge.jpg |
Technical Detail:
Tale of Tales is a sumptuous work particularly in its use of subtle
lighting. As much as the overblown or stylised sets of older fantasy films
really appealed to my aesthetic views, the decision here makes a rock hard,
positive argument for realism. As someone who was sceptical of how it is used
in most modern cinema - flat, static rather than pulling one into a reality -
the fact the fantasy content isn't out -of-place within this tone but gives it
a special style is really surprising in a positive way. The fact the director
is the same one who made Gomorrah
stands out as, while this is elegant looking fantasy, there's plenty that has a
blunt and matter-of-fact reality of mud and fields as Gomorrah was grey beach coast and urban slums. The rejuvenation of
youth to the sight of an ogre's mountain lair have their reality to them
without losing their magical properties, proof of how this aesthetic decision
has succeeded. A lot of this is helped, as mentioned, because of the use of
practical effects but it's also from the lavish nature of the work, from the
music by Alexandre Despla to the
carnivalesque tone to a lot of the world, where tightrope walkers and even a
real performing bear gives it the appropriate sense of spectacle.
The more controversial aspect of
the film, that it's in English with a largely non-Italian cast, doesn't detract
either; remember, even the films of Federico
Fellini were post-dubbed in the golden age of Italian cinema, dubbed in
multiple languages, and had actors from all around the world in the casts,
neither detracting from the films' inherent Italian natures or their artistry. Tale of Tales cannot be mistaken as
anything other than a European film in tone if not Italian, the aesthetic
swallowing an actor like John C. Reilly
and turning him into a figure of this baroque fantasy even if his prescience
might surprise people who only know him from comedies. Like The Lobster (2015), another 2015 Cannes Film Festival premiere where
Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos made
an English language film which also had John
C. Reilly in it alongside a mainly English speaking cast, these films still
hold their creators' idiosyncratic visions through-and-through. Only if a film's completely compromised can it
be accused of being whitewashed of the director's and production crew's country
of origins and personalities for the sake of an English-language commerciality,
a film like Tale of Tales exhibiting
its European origins proudly in its pace and tone.
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| From http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w6ZBfutbV4g/VhbfaEvz2NI/ AAAAAAAAByc/WnzdH6S16PI/s1600/tot1.png |
Abstract Rating (High/Medium/Low/None): None
Probably the one disappointment
with Tale of Tales is that it's not
as weird as fairy tales can be, but that will quickly diminish as time passes; it's
like complaining that a beautiful Italian meal wasn't Chinese, utterly absurd
as a critique even if the site's called Cinema
of the Abstract. The three stories in the film do exhibit qualities of the
unconventional that do exist in fairy tales though, which is something still to
be happy about - the story with the two elderly sisters has the most unconventional
content of the three including witch's breast milk and skin flaying - and
seeing the film reveal in this type of content, it does cause me to stop and
pause realising how sad it is most of the genre in terms of the mainstream is
so completely bland in comparison.
Because of two things the fantasy
genre are too obsessed over - ripping off The
Lord of the Rings trilogy and replicating Joseph Cambell's heroes' journey theory - fantasy has really
descended into such tedious places especially for a genre that, while capable
of profound thought, should be able to relish the spectacle even in small,
delicate stories. The biggest compliment to Tale of Tales is that, while only faintly like them in tone, it
feels closer to the spirit of Pier Paolo
Pasolini's Trilogy of Life - The Decameron (1971), The Canterbury Tales (1972) and Arabian Nights (1974) - in terms of
adapting classic literature and letting their styles and tone be the filmic
structure and mood of the final work. Even as high fantasy, Tale of Tales has an earthly quality,
both capable of being nasty and hilarious, the later especially in seeing Toby Jones obsess over a flea like a pet
dog, that ditches the generic orcs and battles between armies in favour of more
openly fantastical and interesting stories.
Abstract Spectrum: Fantastique/Grotesque
Abstract Tropes: High Fantasy; Monsters; Fairy Tale; Sexuality; Giant
Insects; Carnival Motifs
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| From http://movietvtechgeeks.com/wp-content/uploads /2015/04/tale-of-tale-movie-images-2015.jpg |
Personal Opinion:
A delight to have seen, more so
as it came from the least expected of places; to imagine that the director of Gomorrah decided, with a film called Reality (2012) in-between to add irony
to the career choice, to jump into high fantasy and earnestly is such a
surprise. The grim realism of Gomorrah's
criminal narrative is so alien to this, thought there are clear connections to
suggest why Matteo Garrone made Tale of Tales, that the change is
wonderful just for how unpredictable Garrone
now is. When one pines for directors to be unpredictable, an act like this kind
of change of filmic tone is greatly appreciated and leads as much to building a
fanbase as becoming an auteur with clear trademarks does. That the film is a
success is something that makes this pleasant surprise justifiable.
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