[video] "The Grimm Brothers' Snow White" A Postview, copyright 1998 p-m agapow
The classic fairy tale, fed ("Fargo" style) through a tree shredder.
The media-astute amongst you will recognise "The Grimm Brothers' Snow White" as the latest in the string of "X's Y". For example:
* "Bram Stoker's Dracula"
* "Jackie Collin's Hollywood Wives"
* "Steven Seagal's Career's Shot To Hell"
It is also a member of that dubious class known as Films With Many Names (also known as Films That Are Not Very Good), scuttling around like an international master criminal under various nom-de-plumes:
* "Snow White in the Black Forest"
* "Snow White: A Tale of Terror"
* "Innocent Blood"
which evokes images of sequel films like "What Snow White Did Next" and "Snow White From Navarone". This schizophrenic identity is indicative of a picture that would like to reinvent an old myth, but instead just slaps on a fresh coat of paint and sticks a huge extension out the back. It's not exactly a bad film, but one that is not as brave as it needed to be.
We commence the film with a tragic carriage accident somewhere in the faux Middle Ages. Lord Friedrich Hoffman (Sam Neill, no - really) is distraught at losing his beautiful wife and vows he will not show any facial expressions until he can remarry and advance the plot. But at least he still has his daughter, the utterly resistible Lilli (Taryn Davis). You see, she is named after her unfortunate mother. Holy Freudian overtones, Batman!
Sure 'nuff, after some years Lilli is replaced by another actor (the even more resistible Monica Keena) and the Lord Friedrich announces he will get married to the mysterious Claudia (Sigourney Weaver). With la Sigourney flouncing around the castle, complete with malevolent mute manservant and a wardrobe that occasionally blinds the cleaning staff, things start to get interesting at last. La Sigourney wants to have a child with Friedrich (which is one method of determining whether he's alive or not, I guess) and Lilli pouts a lot. Finally, one of Lilli's tantrums causes her step-mother to miscarry. La Sigourney cranks the acting dial up to "11" and storms dishevelled around the castle, wielding her manservant liberally and talking to the mirror in her wardrobe. (The mirror's reflection incidentally, does a nice fuzzy lens effect that William Shatner would be proud of.) She tries to resurrect her dead baby, casts a sleeping spell on the castle (inadvertently resolving the issue of whether Sam Neill is conscious or not) and casts Lilli out into the deep woods, distracting her would-be beau, the wholly unremarkable Dr Peter Gutenberg (David Conrad, in a career-stalling appearance).
It is about here that the film's inventions start getting problematic. In the earlier scenes, Claudia is sympathetically drawn as a stepmother that is trying hard with a new and uncooperative daughter. Then the daughter's actions cause her to derail, drool wildly and start dabbling in the dark arts. As in "Bram Stoker's Dracula", we are left with the perplexing issue of whether our villain is a damned vile creature, or just someone with a few issues to resolve. ("Tonight on Oprah - Satan, Master of All Evil or Just Misunderstood?") Either way, it seems clear the actions of the bratty Lilli has pushed her onto this path, which allows no happy nor satisfying conclusion.
(Also problematic is the mirror charming Claudia with talk of how beautiful she is, and then presenting the shocking news that there is one more beautiful than her - Lilli. I mean: Hello? We're talking about Sigourney Weaver here? The mirror doesn't have to like to her! And you're comparing her unfavourably to the whiny, pasty Lilli?)
In the forest, Lilli encounters not the Seven Dwarfs but the Six Impoverished and Politically Disenfranchised Homeboys. One of them is actually short, but if you were a Freudian you might think that their lack of power and - hence - metaphorical economic and civil emasculation, make them "dwarfs" in a political sense. (No, that didn't fly for me either.) The Six (And Shortly To Be Five then Four) Homeboys fight over whether they should kill, ransom or protect Lilli. And it doesn't matter how many times you watch the film, they always make the wrong decision.
Needless to say, Lilli with the help of her homies eventually caps her evil but well-intentioned stepmother, La Sigourney chewing scenery all the way. Lilli's boyfriend shows back up again and - alas - Sam Neill is revived and rescued, which means that "Event Horizon" will get made. Darn.
Once again, not a bad film (but who can tell after "Starship Troopers"?) and more one that speaks of a horrible design by committee, where no one vision is allowed to dominate and the film ends up going several directions at once. Sigourney is as always good even in bad roles, Neill continues to snooze his career away, and we have an elegant proof that you don't have to be European to make bad arthouse films. [*/misfire], casual inelegance on the Sid and Nancy scale.
"The Grimm Brothers' Snow White"
Released 1997.
Director Michael Cohn.
Starring Sigourney Weaver, Sam Neill, Taryn Davis, David Conrad, Monica
Keena.
------ Paul-Michael Agapow (agapow@computer.org) "There is no adventure, there is no romance, there is only trouble and desire."
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