Adult fairy tales Gerda, why am I so cold?
That's because you're evil, Kai.
I am angry because I am so cold.
Yes, and the fuck with those who today do not believe in fairy tales. Well, in fact, will not be a healthy uncle for thirty waiting to visit Santa Claus. But the fact that the fairy tales stopped reading is blasphemy. That thirty-year-old uncle is wrong. It is not necessary to limit such modern adaptations as Snow White and the Seven Negroes. What would it take to read the original text? Nothing, I guess. No, that's not the case. We have to come up with our fairy tales, with preference and courtesans. That's what Dutch director Alex van Warmerdam said, and he went to mock the poor Grimm brothers. Hansel and Gretel fell under the sight of the surprise, rest the Lord their souls.
There is a popular opinion that a fairy tale for adults must necessarily be an ordinary thrash, borrowing the main plot elements of the selected works. Stop, stop this madness. Warmerdam can offer people interested in a low-calorie product without any wild thrash.
Despite the super laconic original name, tobyte "Grimm", from the brothers themselves there is nothing left. The plot of the old fairy tale practically does not correlate with the plot of the new fairy tale. Even the names of the main characters have been changed. Perhaps in the Dutch transcription Hansel and Gretel read as Jacob and Marie, or, most likely, here just expresses the desire to rewrite the old well-known fairy tale in a new way, in modern scenery. Hans... that is, Jacob and Marie, left in the cold forest at the whim of their poor parents, this time go to Spain to his uncle. Along the way, they have to rob, kill, have forced sex, and commit many acts that the brothers did not even know about.
In the creation of the surrealist Warmerdam, despite the quite modern, not pretentiously deliberate history, it is easy to guess the features of the same fairy tale, which must be presented to theoretical adults in some unknown way. There is no traditional boom-badaboom going on here. All, or rather almost all, events are quite real and with a great desire for adventures in one soft place are feasible for any person, but at the same time there is something unfiltered by reality, truly fabulous. So some distant Spain is behind that bridge, and the enemies are defeated, albeit on the score of two, but quite happy, and, no less important, without a single drop of blood. Incredibly implausible reality, which is no less real than ordinary cinema.
I can't explain it any better. Cinema is shamelessly irrational, like the devil's fork. You look, you seem to understand, but nothing fits, even if you kill. And this despite the fact that the concentration of the surreal here is negligible. The answers are written right on the screen, but unfortunately, in a language that the viewer does not know.
Old and possibly good Alex van populates his new fabulous universe with heroes worthy of it. Fairytale kind, fairytale angry, not serious. They appear out of nowhere and go nowhere with a certain frequency. The film refers to other almost fairy tales of the new century: Hitchcock’s suspense and spaghetti western scenery visited Warmerdam. Locations change with moderately rapid frequency, at the same time one reference is replaced by another. The lulling European unsightlyness is combined with the polished Hollywood ideality. They change places periodically.
Soon it is done, but not soon the fairy tale affects. It's impossible to tell this story. Adults don’t really need them. And if this is a fairy tale for adults, then you should think about what children read.