Blancanieves - Ein Märchen von Schwarz und Weiss

A silent movie, filmed in black & white, which moves the familiar Snow White fairytale to a bullfighter arena in Seville and spices it with some morbid and melodramatic themes. I admit, it sounds weird. But in fact, it's wonderful. Blancanieves is a great cinematographic accomplishment. Anyone who loves film, should go and see it.

Many silent movies are still a joy to watch, even though they are made almost a hundred years ago. That's because they put so much more emphasis on the visual aspect of the movie. It's about what you see on the screen, not about what the actors say.

Director Pablo Berger has understood this perfectly. Blancanieves is a visual feast from beginning to end. The scenes are filmed in high-contrast black & white, often with deep focus. Everything looks extremely stylish, from the wardrobes to the interiors. Sometimes the images could have come right out of a fashion magazine.

Moreover, the actors know that they have to act differently and use much more expression. Maribel Verdu is a joy to watch as Blancanieves's evil stepmother. Her facial expressions are worth more than a hundred lines of dialogue. Watch for the chicken-eating scene!

In silent movies, the soundtrack is of course extremely important. Blancanieves doesn't disappoint. From the no holds barred, full-scale orchestral pieces during the most melodramatic scenes, to traditional Spanish flamenco music, it all accompanies the images on screen perfectly. Sometimes the soundtrack turns into source music, for example when we see the orchestra playing during the bullfight, or when Blancanieves puts on a record.

it's hard to review this film without mentioning 'The Artist', the Oscar-winning silent movie from last year. Inevitably, Blancanieves stands in the shadow of this successful film. That's bad luck for director Berger, who has started this project long before anyone had even heard of The Artist. Perhaps, if The Artist wouldn't have had as much success as it did, Blancanieves would have attracted more attention. The Artist was a multiple Oscar-winner, Blancanieves didn't even get nominated, although it was the Spanish selection for the foreign language category. That does seem out of proportion, because both films are really great. Blancanieves is old-fashioned film making at its very best.

Blanca Nieves, or Snow White, is a variation on the old fable, with bullfighting being a major thematic difference. A great matador is seen praying in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary, as he awaits is battle with el toro. He enters to a worshippig crowd, which includes his pregnant wife cheering him on. Of course, things go horribly wrong and he ends up in a wheelchair and his better half has a difficult childbirth. A daughter is born and she winds up at an estate with a wicked stepmother, as in the original tale. This is all in black and white and it is also a silent film. I was reluctant to watch it, but once I got used to the placards used for dialogue, I was carried along by the story. Carmen, the little girl, grows up and circumstances bring her to a group of; you guessed it, seven bullfighters. They are little people, in keeping tradition with Grimm's book. I won't give away the ending, but I was thoroughly entertained by Blanca Nieves. The cinematography is beautiful and the acting excellent throughout. Be open minded, as far as watching a silent movie is concerned, and you will not be disappointed.

One of the latest fashions to appear during this new modern century-and it is a trend that is certainly celebrated by this German count- is the rescue from oblivion of the art of the silent film, an art that has been in eclipse since those new technologies of ancient times helped silent actors to .. tsk, tsk… speak.

Last year a good example of what this Herr Von is talking about was the premiere of Herr Michel Hazanavicius' "The Artist" (2011), a French homage to the Amerikan silent film industry and by extension to the Silent Era in general. This modern silent enjoyed considerable success and internationally good reviews.

"Blancanieves" ( Snow White ) (2012),a film directed by Herr Pablo Berger, is also a modern silent but, due to problems with financing such a bizarre film project, "The Artist" won the race to movie theaters. No doubt the two films will be compared in lengthy discussions complete with boring controversies which this Herr Von will leave to those interested in such trivial subjects.

"Blancanieves" is certainly a fascinating, mesmerizing, modern silent film, and is inspired by the famous German fairy tale collected by Brothers Grimm; Herr Berger transfers the story to Spain during the 20s of the last century.

The film is primarily influenced by European masters, notably German Expressionism, and is full of astonishing aesthetics and visual techniques and creates a magical and dark atmosphere that suits perfectly the strange and sad story wherein our heroine will suffer the abandonment by her father and the anger of a stepmother, all against a background of the world of bullfighting and its many peculiar characters. Herr Berger's film is not a simple tribute to the Silent Era but is original and modern, a bold update of silent pictures. It is no mere pastiche.

Deep Spain, namely the Andalucía region, is the setting and we have a star bullfighter who will die tragically, six dwarf toreadors in a travelling show, a wicked stepmother ( great Frau Maribel Verdú ) and a helpless heroine who is looking for protection and love ( what a sad ending, MEIN GOTT!! ), By a twist of fate, "Blancanieves" is the best Spanish silent film ever made.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must wave his cape in front of a dangerous Teutonic rich heiress.

Herr Graf Ferdinand Von Galitzien http://ferdinandvongalitzien.blogspot.com

Silent, black and white, expressionist, virtuoso in his classically vintage mise en scene, "Blancanieves" is a triumph of real cinema and invention, folk culture and Iberian poetry, a post-modern masterpiece in which the aesthetic of silent cinema – with its quotes and its expressive forms, the single power of pictures and musical score – it's not only an end, as it has been for the contemporary and more exalted "The Artist" (in which retro style was justified by the homage to old Hollywood), but a mean, a perfect mean, to tell a story: the usual one, by Grimm's brothers tiredly taken to screens so many times in so different ways, but here completely twisted, tipped over, in a Gothic, Spanish and extravagant version where Snow White and seven dwarfs are toreros, the set is Seville between '10s and '20s, and the usual Disney fable hearts and flowers go to hell in benefit of a dark tonality, a black humor and a grotesque taste which unchains an unstoppable series of stylistic, comical, poetic inventions, unpredictable as sensational. Under the aegis of a deep patriotic identity, "Blancanieves" has the rhythm of a corrida, the passion of a flamenco, the blood of the arena, the twists of circus and the weight of jealousy, of love duel, which is heart and root of Spanish romanticism. It's a modern "Carmen" with Oedipus complex, tuned with "guitara" and castanets, and painted with the oldest cinema aesthetic, close-ups, gags, depth of field, lights and darks of great silent cinema, here in its maximal expression, without any self-satisfaction at all. It's not a divertissement, and not a simple homage, not a pastiche: it's like a film should be, simple, dry, moving, as cinema in its beginning. Cinephile mannerism of Pablo Berger doesn't make lose the film in a style exercise, but helps to tell a black fairy tale, out of time, revolutionary and anarchic, which couldn't be represented some way else. A bond of immediate emotion and narrative synthesis, which discovers in the arena a theater of all life sensation range: laugh, crying, show, anguish, childhood lightness and horrid adults' cruelty, the weight of past and memories, ghosts and returns, a little antique world in which good and evil, hate and love, jealousy and solidarity, clash and overturn in front of an enraptured, manipulated audience who asks for more, who wants to be thrilled, who gets touched, who has fun, and in the end asks grace for the bull. And, on the very last scene, cries for masterpiece!

Blancanieve (Snow White) is in every sense one of the best films of 2012. Coming directly in the footsteps of Oscar winner The Artist, this is another film that proves that Silent Film is not a derogatory term but rather leaves us to bring more not less of ourselves to what is a stunning film.

Where Blacanieve triumphs is in its storytelling, its acting, and yes, its melodrama, which here works and makes us feel like we are really watching a Spanish film from the birth of Spanish cinema - the casting of the extras, and the attention to detail just adds to this sensation - and it really is a good watch from beginning to end.

I used to watch films all the time, now I find most are so generic, uninspiring, and just plain dull, that I have almost lost the desire - but then you see a film like this and it restores your faith - a simply excellent film about love, passion, jealousy, and sadness.