BEFORE: Salma Hayek carries over from "Beatriz at Dinner", capping off just two films, but she's been in four films this year so far, so she's made it to my year-end round-up for sure. Tonight starts a 4-film chain with John C. Reilly (it would be 6 films, but I need to save 2 of them for December), to be followed by three with Joaquin Phoenix, which will take me almost to the end of August - and in September I'll have similar chains with Adam Driver, Tracy Morgan, Melissa McCarthy and Dwayne Johnson. But I'm afraid I couldn't get to the back-to-school films until mid-September, so I'll just be running a little late this year.
THE PLOT: From the bitter quest of the Queen of Longtrellis, to two mysterious sisters who provoke the passion of a king, to the King of Highhills obsessed with a giant flea, these tales are inspired by the fairytales of Giambattista Basile.
AFTER: I wasn't familiar with the name of Giambattista Basile, but the three stories that make up this film come from one of his story collections, which also contained the earliest known versions of "Cinderella", "Rapunzel" and "Sleeping Beauty". This was the guy that the Brothers Grimm sort of, shall we say, borrowed from quite liberally. Of course, that's what happens all the time, stories are based on other stories and they change over time - for example, we all know now that the "glass slipper" in Cinderella came from a translation error, it was originally a fur slipper, which makes a lot more sense, and sounds less dangerous. (In French, the word for fur would be "VAIR" and the word for glass is "VERRE" - so in that language the words are homonyms, easy to mistake for each other.)
But the main thing that changed about fairy tales over the years is that they used to be much darker - at some point, happy endings proved to be more popular. In the old days, they served as moral lessons, or perhaps warnings for kids on how to behave, because the greedy characters always got something they didn't expect, but probably deserved. In the old versions of "Cinderella", those evil stepsisters wanted the slipper to fit on their feet, so why not chop off a couple of toes to make it fit? It's worth it if you get to marry the Prince and live in his castle, right? Umm, does anyone know how to get blood stains off of a fur slipper?
That's kind of where these three stories come from, too, I think - in each story, somebody WANTS something, and their desire extends beyond their reach, so the question then becomes, what are they willing to do, or to give up, in order to get it? (And by extension, the readers/audience are taught to be happy with what they already have.) First is the Queen of Longtrellis, who wants a child, but has been unable to conceive. A mysterious stranger tells her to hunt a sea monster, cut out its heart, and have a virgin cook it for her to eat. (Or, I don't know, maybe have sex with the king, but what the hell do I know? Let's assume for a moment that she already tried that.) The unspoken cost of this monster hunt is very dear, but she goes ahead with it anyway. The main characters of the other two stories are seen during this - well, let's call it a prologue - but they won't be important until later. The point is that the Queen (and the virgin who cooked the heart) end up having sons, who look a lot alike, practically twins.
Fast forward a few years, and the two very similar-looking boys are young men, one is in line to become king, and the other's just a peasant boy, and the Queen disapproves of them hanging out together. As we all know, there's only ONE reason in a story for two characters to be able to pass for each other, right? It's a bit like "The Prince and the Pauper", so maybe Mark Twain stole - sorry, borrowed - from this author too.
Now, once the other two stories get rolling here, they sort of liberally jump between all three - even though the stories aren't necessarily advancing at the same rate. Yep, they "Dunkirk"ed these stories together, even though the plots aren't important to each other, and the characters don't come back together until the very end. They could have just as easily told one complete story, then the second, then the third, but it's really a matter of choice. It's not TOO hard to juggle all three stories in your head when presented this way. I'm guessing this was done just to create some narrative tension, so we'll all wonder when they're going to cut back to the other storyline.
The second story concerns the King of Strongcliff, who's bedded just about every young woman in his kingdom, so there seem to be no new worlds to conquer. But one day he hears a woman, Dora, singing in the distance, only when he calls to her, she ducks inside her hut. The thrill of the chase takes over, and he's intrigued by the woman he's never seen before - now WE know that this is really an old woman who lives with her even older sister, Imma, but HE doesn't know that, so he decides he has to have her. Dora agrees to sleep with the king, but only in complete darkness. But the king can't resist lighting a candle, and when he sees the old lady he slept with, he has his guards throw her out the window. But she's found in the forest by a passing witch, who turns her into a young maiden again. The king then sees her again and falls in love, but Dora then leaves Imma behind to marry the King. This sets up Imma to want to be young and beautiful again, too, and she'll pay any cost to make that happen.
The third story is about the King of Highhills, who keeps a pet flea that somehow grows to enormous size. His daughter wants to be married and explore the world, but the King wants to keep his daughter around, so when the flea dies, he skins it and offers his daughter's hand to any man that can identify this weird giant flea skin. (Ewww.) Because letting his daughter pick her husband just wasn't a thing back then - so let's just say she gets married, but it doesn't turn out well. She requires the help of a traveling circus to escape her marriage, and that goes even wronger. So again, the running theme seems to be, once you've identified what you want out of life, what are you willing to do to get it? And then when things go horribly wrong, what are you willing to do to FIX it?
Back to those twins to wrap up - the peasant twin is forced to leave the kingdom, but he leaves behind a way for the prince twin to know if he's in danger. Eventually the prince twin leaves to find the peasant twin, and the Queen realizes her mistake in keeping the two boys apart. Once again, there's a way to fix everything with some magic, but once again, it comes at a high cost. Put another way, the director is quoted as saying that all three stories are about how desire can lead to obsession, and, collectively, they're about three different stages of a woman's life - a young girl who wants to be married, a wife who wants to be a mother, and an older woman who wants to be young and desired again.
NITPICK POINT: The king in the first story battles the sea monster in something that looks like a cross between a suit of armor and a late 19th century diving suit. Only, where's the air tank? Where's the air hose? Oh, right, they didn't have those back then. So, how did he breathe underwater, then?
Also starring Vincent Cassel (last seen in "Eastern Promises"), Toby Jones (last seen in "Christopher Robin"), John C. Reilly (last seen in "Robin Williams: Come Inside My Mind"), Shirley Henderson (last seen in "T2 Trainspotting"), Hayley Carmichael, Bebe Cave, Stacy Martin (last seen in "All the Money in the World"), Christian Lees, Jonah Lees, Laura Pizzirani, Franco Pistoni, Jessie Cave (last seen in "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2"), Michael Martini, Alessandro Campagna, Davide Campagna, Lorenzo Bernardi, Kathryn Hunter, Renato Scarpa, Guillaume Delaunay (last seen in "Victor Frankenstein"), Massimo Ceccherini, Alba Rohrwacher.
RATING: 5 out of 10 knife jugglers
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