BLANCANIEVES (2012) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
D: Pablo Berger
Marabel Verdú, Macarena Garcia, Sofia Oria,
Daniel Giménez Cacho, Angela Molina, Inma Cuesta
A red curtain opens up on a dark screen. The screen stays dark for a moment, and when it flickers to life, you're watching a silent movie, in black and white, with the same aspect ratio as an old silent film. This one was shot in 2011, and it looks great. It's set in 1920s Spain, and it's a retelling of "Snow White", in which Snow White is a matador and the seven dwarfs are itinerant bullfighters. If you can't imagine something like that, let alone how it could possibly work, trust me, it does. If I was going to give an Oscar to a silent movie, it wouldn't be "The Artist". It'd be this.
