Tale of
Tales
(2015)
(SPOILERS)
A rich, absorbing, decidedly adult take on fairy tales that might put one in
mind of Neil Jordan’s The Company of
Wolves, but more for want of other similarly grown-up-skewed fare than
direct tonal similarities. A selection of three cautionary stories based on the
works of Giambattista Basile, which in turn influenced the more renowned likes
of the Brothers Grimm, Matteo Garrone’s film features as its protagonists three
different women in three different states of empowerment/disenfranchisement,
but it might be a mistake to construe meaning overtly from that; this is more
about the traps our desires set for us generally, rather than an express exploration
of gender straightjackets.
The tales
are only obliquely linked, through a funeral and a wedding in which the various
royal characters gather, but Garrone ensures that, rather than a sequential portmanteau,
the unfolding narratives keep pace with each other. At first sight, the second
one we are introduced to, The Flea, appears
to be the least enticing, concerning a king (Toby Jones, beautifully blinkered)
who becomes devoted to a flea rather than his daughter Violet (Bebe Cave) whom
he formerly doted on.
However, it
quickly plunges into the progressively weirder, as the King begins feeding his
tiny pet first his blood and then rare steaks; it grows to an enormous size,
and thanks to design work that lends it a rather forlorn, cartoonish expression,
the creature manages to be simultaneously repulsive and cute. Before it expires
through being over-indulged. That the tale then takes a further distinctive left
turn, as the daughter’s hand is offered to whoever can guess the provenance of
the enormous flea skin hanging in the throne room (an ogre does), and we are
thrown into the world of Violet’s captivity, rape, escape and recapture (the
latter a grippingly shocking scene, as the caravan of travelling entertainers who
rescued her are attacked and slain by the ogre), makes it the most compelling
and unpredictable of the trio.
The least
of the three, although it ends in suitably grisly fashion, The Two Old Women, finds a licentious king (Vincent Cassel)
obsessed with the singing of who he believes to be a beautiful young maiden,
but is in fact an aging crone, Dora (Hayley Carmichael), living with her
similarly spinsterish sister, Imma (Shirley Henderson).
There’s
commentary on the illusory nature of beauty here, albeit in a rather unfinessed
manner; after being rejected by the disgusted monarch, Dora is transformed into
a young woman (Stacy Martin) by a travelling witch, and thence gains the king’s
hand in marriage. Most involving, however, is the tragic twist of poor, simple
Imma, unable to adjust to her sister’s good fortune, having herself flayed on
the understanding that it was this that brought Dora her youth and beauty. It’s
here that the film finds its starkest contrast between the dream logic, magic
wand waving of fairy tales and the sour reality of death and decay. Overall,
though, the sequence is insufficiently commanding in and of itself, and additionally
hampered by some terrible old age make-up that wouldn’t look out place on Billy
Crystal’s Magical Max in The Princess
Bride (it isn’t clear why Garrone went this route; it isn’t as if
Carmichael also plays her younger self).
The first
tale, The Queen, begins in full
flight of fantasy, as the husband (John C Reilly) must slay a sea monster in
order that his Queen (Salma Hayek) may give birth. She’s a stern, unsympathetic
figure, failing even to give the King’s body a glance when the heart of the beast
(which she must feed on) is presented to her, and refusing to allow her resulting
son (Christian Lees) to spend time with his magical twin (Jonah Lees), born of
the virgin who prepared said heart. It’s the relationship between the boys,
well-played by the Lees brothers, that provides the pulse of this segment, and
the Queen discovers to her cost that her unyielding will (“Violent desires such as yours can only be satisfied with violence”)
will be directed back on her.
The moral
aspect is most explicit here, but there’s an underlying thread throughout of selfish
desires leading only to sadness, pain and loss, and perhaps too that, as the
Necromancer advises, that “The
equilibrium of the world must be maintained”. This isn’t a film interested
in force-feeding a presiding theme, however (Cassel’s character goes ostensibly
unpunished for his lusty predilections, save for losing a wife, which I’m sure
he will get over); it is designed to work on a more instinctive, intuitive
level, reflecting the original stories from which it derives.
Garrone’s
achievement is extraordinary; you’d be hard-pressed to believe this only cost
$14.5m. Peter Suschitzky’s cinematography is quite breath-taking, distinctive
and evocative (he hitherto worked with Ken Russell, lensed The Empire Strikes Back and is Cronenberg’s regular director of
photography). They take in a variety of Italian locations that blend seamlessly
with stage sets (the aim was to evoke heraldic images and seventeenth century
landscapes), passing from undersea realms to pristine banqueting halls (the
Queen, in white, messily devours a bloody heart), to clifftop passes and
forbidding forests.
The use of special effects (aside from the aforementioned
make-up) is entirely complementary, mixing CGI, prosthetics and animatronics to
yield a tangible, eerily distinctive quality that sets them apart from standard
Hollywood pixels. And the score, by Alexandre Desplat, a composer I find very
variable, is quite magnificent, perfectly uniting the storylines with a dreamy,
lyrical insistence that this is just how things are, must be, and ever were.
Garrone’s
film could possibly have done with a bit of tightening, but the Desplat score
actually works in favour of that loose approach. And if his eclectic casting
recalls the kind of Europudding pictures of the late ‘60s and early ‘70s
(Reilly doesn’t quite fit), with at variance acting styles and nationalities,
the visual flavour and tonal unity of Tale
of Tales makes it seem entirely appropriate.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.