lisa-ravenclaw

The royal court roars with laughter. A group of jesters grin and jeer at one another, do cartwheels, breathe fire. In the midst of all this mirth, the Queen sits sad and silent on her throne. Her eyes fall on one of the players and suddenly she runs off, distraught. The King chases after her, shouting that he is sorry, that he did not know. His apologies fall on deaf ears.

So begins Tale of Tales, Matteo Garrone's visually striking, but ultimately uninspiring adaptation of the Pentamerone, a book of Italian folk stories collected in the 17th century.The film cuts between three separate narrative strands, linked together by the unifying theme of all-consuming obsession. One tale centres around a monarch mad with lust, and two crones in his kingdom who desire only to be young again. Another depicts a woman who will do anything for motherhood. The third tale introduces us to a king's unhealthy fascination with a flea, and an ogre unable to set free his reluctant and unhappy bride.

Fairy tales these may be, but their delightfully disturbing content ensures that they are not meant for children. (At least by modern, if not by 17th century standards – the Pentamerone, just as full of sex and violence as Garrone's 15 rated film, was subtitled 'Entertainment for Little Ones'). Yet even though Tale of Tales is too graphic and gruesome for kids and is clearly aimed at older audiences, it remains too childishly straightforward to be captivating. I would have needed either more nuance or more mystery and suggestion for the film to draw me in and immerse me in its world. There are, for instance, scenes where characters morph into a different physical shape. Had these transformations remained unexplained by the narrative they would have evoked a sense of wonder and significance, like visual poems hinting at some elusive but compelling underlying idea. Instead, the characters transform because a magician cast a spell, and there is nothing to think about. It is the kind of simple cause and effect storytelling with a clear moral – for all three narrative strands put forward the idea that 'obsession is not good for you' – which works so well for children's stories, but is too obvious to really interest adults.

To be fair, it was never Garrone's intention to prompt intellectual engagement with Tale of Tales. 'Don't try to understand it. Just feel it, like when you are standing in front of a painting. Follow the characters, take the journey, feel the emotion,' the director said in a Guardian interview. But the characters are too one-dimensional to seem real, and I found it hard to care about their lives or fates. They also speak far too much to function well as figures onto whom one can project emotion, like when one is standing in front of a painting. It should have been show not tell, with the camera lingering on the characters' facial expressions, and allowing spectators to empathise and identify with them. Instead, feelings, from love to longing, are spoken – 'He's like a brother to me', 'I want to be young again' – and the action moves forward.

Less would have been more, with Tale of Tales. The power of the film lies in its visuals, which are beguiling, gorgeous and grotesque. The dialogues and narrative explanations serve only to trivialise the images, lessening the overall effect of the film. The trailer for Tale of Tales, a succession of visuals set to nothing but music,is better than the film itself.

The dead man's daughter is the only one who notices the stranger. He is standing some distance away from the funeral, watching her. Later, at the reception, her mother is immediately charmed. 'India,' she beams, 'come and say hello to your uncle Charlie'. The stranger turns around, smiling.

What follows is a dark and inventive subversion of the coming-of-age genre, as eighteen year old India realises that there is something menacing about this uncle that she never knew existed, and that it is precisely this suggestion of the dangerous which draws her to him. 'Have you ever seen a photograph of yourself,' she explains, 'taken from an angle you don't get to see when you look in the mirror. And you think, that's me! That's also me!' In her father's younger brother India finds echoes of herself, and what she comes to understand about the two of them both fascinates and disturbs her.

This tension of being attracted to something that you know is wrong is masterfully expressed through a camera which keeps zooming in as it moves away, and zooming out as it draws closer. Like India, we linger when we should be leaving. We hesitate as we approach. And the images that we see on screen are very beautiful, showing us the world from an original, compelling point of view. The opening of an eye is matched to the opening of a piano lid. Long hair transforms into long grass waving in the wind.

What you end up thinking of Stoker largely depends on whether or not you agree with something Oscar Wilde said (about books, but he was writing before film was invented). According to Wilde, 'there is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written or badly written. That is all.' To say that Stoker is a well shot film is an understatement, but the subject matter that it renders so beautifully is as perverse as can possibly be. Violence is not only aestheticised, but sexualised. And those compelled to hurt others are presented as unique, almost elite human beings. 'I wonder if you too' Charlie tells his niece, 'can hear what others cannot hear, see what they cannot see'. Blood drips off small white flowers.

Worst of all, Stoker ultimately concludes that destructive urges run in your blood – for India's mother is an outcast who can never truly belong to the family that she married into – and that the mature thing to do is to give up individual agency and simply accept your own biological determinism: 'Just as a flower does not choose its colour, we are not responsible for what we have come to be,' India whispers in the opening monologue. 'Only once you realise this do you become free. And to become adult, is to become free'.

Nevertheless, I think those who decry Stoker for glorifying violence are missing the point. Chan-wook Park's film is really about seduction, and it is us the viewers who are being seduced. Wilde was writing at a time when an 'immoral book' was simply one with a hint of sex. Today, sex is all over the screen, and the bar for immorality is lower. But seduction is at its most thrilling if it has an element of transgression. What can a film still show us nowadays that, to our dismay, makes us realise that we like what we see? I suggest you watch Stoker for yourself and find out. I for one enjoyed it immensely.