THE BROTHERS GRIMM
US, 2005, 119 minutes, Colour.
Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Peter Stormari, Lena Hedey, Jonathan Price, Mackenzie Crook, Monica Bellucci.
Directed by Terry Gilliam.
The world is indebted to Wilhelm and Jakob Grimm. Over many years, they collected more than two hundred stories that were part of the German oral tradition, publishing them as Grimm’s Fairy Tales. In the early 19th century, they wanted to offer stories of the people and of the imagination as a counter to the dominance of the 18th century’s Age of Reason.
A cheerfully exuberant film was made in the early 1960s, The Wonderful World of the Brothers Grimm. With Terry Gilliam at the helm, the new film about the brothers is not quite so cheerful, although in its way it is certainly exuberant. Gilliam calls his film a fairy tale about the Grimms. It didn’t happen… It could have happened!
Gilliam imagines the brothers as two con-men travelling their native Germany which is now occupied by French invading forces. It is 1796 and the Napoleonic wars are about to break in Europe. The French are snobbish (but with ‘Allo, ‘Allo accents). The Germans are more sensible although they are highly superstitious. The brothers have a reputation for ridding communities of witches and ghosts, quite a spectacular show – but all of their own making. They get a shock when the French general (Jonathan Pryce, star of Gilliam’s 1980s classic Brazil) arrests them but orders them to solve a mystery in a village where the children have been disappearing.
Thus begins a story where reality and fairy story mingle.
Matt Damon is the forceful and charming Wilhelm, master of the fraud. Heath Ledger is the mild-mannered and bespectacled Jacob who is forever writing down the folk stories he hears. With the help of a tough hunting guide, Angelika (Lena Headey), they enter the enchanted forest with its shifting trees, tentacle branches and continuing menace. In the forest is a Rapunzel-like tower where the Mirror Queen (Monica Bellucci) (of ‘who is the fairest fame?’) lies sleeping and haggard until she drinks the blood of twelve children at the moon’s eclipse.
The brothers experience hazards in the forest and harassment from Cavaldi, the General’s aide and creator of elaborate machines of torture. He is played by Peter Stormare in an even more over the top manic performance than his Satan in Constantine. If only Gilliam had reined him in more so that he would have been comic rather than demented! (There were delays in the production and interference from the Weinstein Brothers – if they were to cut anything, trimming Stormare would have been more acceptable!)
What the screenplay does is weave small scenes from well-known fairy tales and allusions to others throughout the whole script: Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Cinderella, Snow White and, at the end with the threatened Angelika, Sleeping Beauty.
For what audience has the film been made? It has a 12A classification which means that children under 12 need to see it with an adult. It does have some frightening scenes (with wolves, with some mock torture, with the Mirror Queen’s transformation), but they are the kinds of scares we expect from fairy tales rather than the mechanised brutality of so many children’s television programs. Adults? Most of the critics dismissed the film. Many seemed to be expecting a treatise on the imagination and made no allowances for its appeal of popular and folktale storytelling.
This means that its main appeal is to audiences, young and old, who don’t like to put limits on their imaginations. There are so many possibilities in imagining ‘what if…?’. Gilliam (who has created such worlds before in Time Bandits, The Adventures of Baron Munchausen, Brazil and The Fisher King) lets rip with the adventures here, not waiting for audiences to admire the scenery of the costumes. He loves the action and its meanings. Gilliam was also one of the Monty Pythons, co-directing The Holy Grail and directing Jabberwocky. He has never minded presenting the absurd side of storytelling. He offers a brew of the comic, the sinister, fantasy and a dash of realism.
1.The mixed reception for the film? The stories of interference by the producers, the Weinstein brothers? A Terry Gilliam film – or a flawed film?
2.The work of Terry Gilliam, his imagination, the tradition of Monty Python, his interest in fairy tales, myths, the dark side? How evident here?
3.The Czech locations, the studios and sets, the forest, the village, the tower? Interiors?
4.The lavish costumes, the décor, the re-creation of the 19th century? The devising of effects for the classics, the fairy tales? The musical score?
5.The special effects, the stunt work?
6.The atmosphere of magic, cinematic magic, the magic tales? Reality and fantasy?
7.The background of the actual Grimm brothers, their life, the collection of the stories, their influence on the German imagination? The world heritage of their stories?
8.The background of the German enlightenment, rational approach to life? The contrast with popular superstitions? Storytelling?
9.The role of stories, imagining the dark side of human nature, wish fulfilment? Fairies? The exorcism of fears? Happy endings?
10.The Grimms’ fairy tales, the same stories from different authors? Their collection? The impact in the 19th century? The applications now?
11.The audience response? Imaginative audiences and their delight? More focused audiences and their interest in the presentation? The imaginative interpretation and the subjective approach? The objective listening to storytelling, fairy tales – and passing judgment on their adequacy or inadequacy?
12.The prologue, the children, the clash between Will and Jake? The practical one? The dreamer? The parents? The money, the beans? The fights?
13.The Grimm brothers and their career, confidence tricksters, travelling the countryside, the village, their arrival and the celebration, importance? The witch, the discussions about payment, the fears of the rulers of the village? Will as the smooth talker, the snake oil seller? Jake, his writing? The money? The dramatics of the spells, the theatrics? The revelation that it was all set up? Their assistants?
14.The revelation of the truth after the imaginative presentation of the witch, the fears, the shock? Audience shock – and then the ironic reality? The brothers, their relationship, working as a team, the other members of the team, the travels?
15.The background of Germany, the clash with the French? The Napoleonic times? French signs in occupied Germany – and the tongue-in-cheek presentation of traditional enmities between the two countries? The brothers, their accents, German background? The importance of the government, the people? The general and his being the instrument of Napoleon, his French style and French dominant culture? Cavaldi, the Italian background? His service of the general? The situation, the village, Cavaldi and his wanting to expose the brothers? Their being arrested, tortured? The confrontations with the general, the threats? Their being given a mission?
16.The presentation of Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, Rapunzel, Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty?
17.The brothers, their work, the meeting with Angelika? Her tough stances? Her stories, the wolf – and her father? The arrows?
18.The forest, the castle, the queen, the plague and the village, her protecting herself, the fairest of them all? The Mirror Queen? Her devices, taking the children? Their deaths? Her burying the children, wanting them to give her life and beauty? The final confrontation, Jake? The mirror smashing and her being destroyed?
19.Will and Jake, their personalities, strengths and weaknesses, infatuation with Angelika? The mission, finding the graves, the families and their grief with the disappearances of their daughters? The young girls and their deaths? Angelika, under threat? Her father and the wolf? Her death?
20.The brothers and their final scheme, the defeat of the queen, Angelika coming to life, the restoration of the children?
21.The French general, his angers, his wanting to torture the brothers, destroy them? Cavaldi and his insanity? Confrontation of the brothers – supporting them? The brothers, their future, Angelika? Restoration of the ordinary way of life?
22.The entertainment of this kind of excursion into the past, a superstitious past, the historical past of the Napoleonic era? The importance of this kind of imaginative memory?
