This is not the Middle Ages I looked at some reviews - and I wanted to confuse people who did not read Basile, but believe that they understood the style of this author thanks to the film.
Viewers who are little acquainted with the culture of the XVII century, sincerely consider it ' medieval' that, in my (and not only my, but also most experts) view, is fundamentally wrong even about the beginning of the century. This is, without a doubt, a new time, baroque with its bizarre playfulness and parody! And if you bothered to find the source on the Internet (and this can be done), you would realize after a few phrases that the fairy tales of Giambattista Basile are not scary or gloomy. Yes, in some places there is a very black humor, but it is just humor, banter, parody! The delusion of the plots is completely intentional, it is strengthened in comparison with the medieval fairy tales that the author plays. Of course, these stories are not able to cause fear or tears – they were not written for this purpose. And many of them are much more scrambled than can be solved by the film, but they have less violence and drama - this is what our contemporaries added! A particularly characteristic example is the tale of a flea and the daughter of the king, in the original of which no character was seriously injured, except for an insect.
However, despite the fact that the film is very far from the original source, I liked it. Turning a parody into something gloomy thanks to a modern view of things is also not a bad idea. The movie is much more psychological than the original, you sympathize with the characters, there is the notorious 'suspence'. Cruelty does not bother me personally, because it is presented as cruelty, and not 'between the case' Problems of domestic violence, the desire to return youth through plastic surgery - this is our, XXI century, and the answers to questions are given in a modern way, that attentive and educated person by the end of the film is already quite noticeable.
But you will see the Middle Ages here only in a double refraction - first in the prism of the New Time, then the Modern Time. And this must be taken into account.
Original