osprey_archer (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
osprey_archer) wrote2013-05-19 12:18 am
osprey_archer) wrote2013-05-19 12:18 am
Entry tags:
Blancanieves
Blancanieves! It’s a retelling of Snow White in 1920s Spain, featuring bullfighting, beautiful black-and-white cinematography that creates an exquisitely gothic atmosphere, an evil stepmother who is a joy to watch - she just enjoys being evil so much, you guys! - and we enjoy rooting for her downfall almost as much! - because the heroine, who is Carmen until she gets amnesia and becomes Blancanieves the bullfighting girl, is totally delightful.
The whole film is delightful, and gothic, and beautiful, and creepy. So creepy. It has the CREEPIEST ENDING EVER. Silent film is the perfect medium for a fairy tale adaptation: the silence puts it at a sort of remove from reality, which gives it both a sort of ethereal glow and that essential strangeness that both say "fairy tale."
Carmen’s father is a bullfighter. However, he is tragically gored by a bull, which horrifies Carmen’s mother so much that she goes into labor early and dies birthing Carmen. Stricken with grief, Carmen’s father marries Encarna, who proceeds to build herself a palace and keep Carmen’s father cooped up in a little room where he can’t get in her way too much.
Things happen! Carmen shows up at the palace! Encarna roasts Carmen’s pet chicken and presents it to her on a platter. This pretty much sets the tone for their relationship. Carmen manages to sneak into the house to befriend her father, who gives her bullfighting lessons, until Encarna gets tired of him and arranges for him to have an accident.
And then she gets tired of Carmen - now grown to young womanhood - and arranges for her to have an accident too. Carmen is drowned! But all is not lost! A hot guy gives her CPR.
Jin: This is clearly the updated version of the Prince kissing her! Which means we will not see him again till the end of the movie, probably.
Carmen wakes up in a caravan - you know, the old-fashioned wagon kind of caravan - suffering from amnesia and totally confused about why she is suddenly surrounded by tiny people. (Naturally these are the dwarves. They make their living traveling around Spain fighting bull calves. This was apparently actually a thing, comical dwarf bull-fighting troops.)
The hot guy turns out to be one of the seven dwarves!
Jin: YES. ALL OF THIS. I APPROVE.
(I approve so much that I just spent the better part of an hour searching the internet before I finally found his name, courtesy of this spoiler-iffic but squee-tastic review, seriously, I should have just linked this and not bothered writing my own. WHERE IS THE RAFITA LOVE, EVERYONE ELSE ON THE INTERNET?)
They call her Blancanieves, "just like the story." (How much do I love that they know they are in a fairy tale adaptation!) She becomes their star attraction! She ends up fighting a bull in the big arena in Seville! Her stepmother sneaks her a poison apple and Blancanieves/Carmen falls into a coma.
For complicated plot reasons, Carmen basically signed her life away to a creepy dude who would manage her career for the rest of her life. Well, the creepy dude has figured out a way to make money off her even though she’s in a coma. He keeps her in a glass coffin during his magic show, and at the end, audience members come up and pay a little extra to give her a kiss, to see if it will wake her.
Rafita has become the keeper of the coffin. He sleeps in the coffin, by Blancanieves’ side. At the end he gives her a kiss, which ought to wake her up, but apparently he used up all his “waking up the princess” mojo in that CPR way back when, because all this kiss does is make a single tear trickle from Blancanieves’ eye, just in case we hadn’t noticed how sad this all was.
O.O
This is still not as creepy as Habla Con Ella, which is also all about coma victims (Spanish directors, what is with you and women in comas? Women bullfighters in comas, even?), but, uh, it’s pretty far up there.
ANYWAY THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME AND YOU SHOULD ALL SEE IT. Because it is so beautiful: even just on a purely visual level, the black and white is so crisp and clean and striking, and all the details so rich and well-chosen. And the fairy tale adaptation is so playfully and delicately done! And the characters are so much fun! And they all wear beautiful twenties clothes! And bull-fighting outfits, for which I have an unfortunate fixation, because they are shiny!
And also I kind of want to read about Rafita’s unrequited crush on Blancanieves and possibly Blancanieves realizing that she likes him too, although pining is always fun, and Blancanieves being ravishingly beautiful in her traje de luces, and maybe futurefic, and and and HELP ME LJ-WAN KENOBI, YOU ARE MY ONLY HOPE.
The whole film is delightful, and gothic, and beautiful, and creepy. So creepy. It has the CREEPIEST ENDING EVER. Silent film is the perfect medium for a fairy tale adaptation: the silence puts it at a sort of remove from reality, which gives it both a sort of ethereal glow and that essential strangeness that both say "fairy tale."
Carmen’s father is a bullfighter. However, he is tragically gored by a bull, which horrifies Carmen’s mother so much that she goes into labor early and dies birthing Carmen. Stricken with grief, Carmen’s father marries Encarna, who proceeds to build herself a palace and keep Carmen’s father cooped up in a little room where he can’t get in her way too much.
Things happen! Carmen shows up at the palace! Encarna roasts Carmen’s pet chicken and presents it to her on a platter. This pretty much sets the tone for their relationship. Carmen manages to sneak into the house to befriend her father, who gives her bullfighting lessons, until Encarna gets tired of him and arranges for him to have an accident.
And then she gets tired of Carmen - now grown to young womanhood - and arranges for her to have an accident too. Carmen is drowned! But all is not lost! A hot guy gives her CPR.
Jin: This is clearly the updated version of the Prince kissing her! Which means we will not see him again till the end of the movie, probably.
Carmen wakes up in a caravan - you know, the old-fashioned wagon kind of caravan - suffering from amnesia and totally confused about why she is suddenly surrounded by tiny people. (Naturally these are the dwarves. They make their living traveling around Spain fighting bull calves. This was apparently actually a thing, comical dwarf bull-fighting troops.)
The hot guy turns out to be one of the seven dwarves!
Jin: YES. ALL OF THIS. I APPROVE.
(I approve so much that I just spent the better part of an hour searching the internet before I finally found his name, courtesy of this spoiler-iffic but squee-tastic review, seriously, I should have just linked this and not bothered writing my own. WHERE IS THE RAFITA LOVE, EVERYONE ELSE ON THE INTERNET?)
They call her Blancanieves, "just like the story." (How much do I love that they know they are in a fairy tale adaptation!) She becomes their star attraction! She ends up fighting a bull in the big arena in Seville! Her stepmother sneaks her a poison apple and Blancanieves/Carmen falls into a coma.
For complicated plot reasons, Carmen basically signed her life away to a creepy dude who would manage her career for the rest of her life. Well, the creepy dude has figured out a way to make money off her even though she’s in a coma. He keeps her in a glass coffin during his magic show, and at the end, audience members come up and pay a little extra to give her a kiss, to see if it will wake her.
Rafita has become the keeper of the coffin. He sleeps in the coffin, by Blancanieves’ side. At the end he gives her a kiss, which ought to wake her up, but apparently he used up all his “waking up the princess” mojo in that CPR way back when, because all this kiss does is make a single tear trickle from Blancanieves’ eye, just in case we hadn’t noticed how sad this all was.
O.O
This is still not as creepy as Habla Con Ella, which is also all about coma victims (Spanish directors, what is with you and women in comas? Women bullfighters in comas, even?), but, uh, it’s pretty far up there.
ANYWAY THIS MOVIE IS AWESOME AND YOU SHOULD ALL SEE IT. Because it is so beautiful: even just on a purely visual level, the black and white is so crisp and clean and striking, and all the details so rich and well-chosen. And the fairy tale adaptation is so playfully and delicately done! And the characters are so much fun! And they all wear beautiful twenties clothes! And bull-fighting outfits, for which I have an unfortunate fixation, because they are shiny!
And also I kind of want to read about Rafita’s unrequited crush on Blancanieves and possibly Blancanieves realizing that she likes him too, although pining is always fun, and Blancanieves being ravishingly beautiful in her traje de luces, and maybe futurefic, and and and HELP ME LJ-WAN KENOBI, YOU ARE MY ONLY HOPE.