|
 Bella
Venezia from Italy. Nourie Hadag from Armenia. Gold-tree from Scotland. These
and other variations on the story of Snow White (Aarne-Thompson folklore
classification No. 709, for those keeping score at home) have been told
countless times and in countless forms: plays, novels, TV shows, comic books,
Japanese anime. Snow White has spawned more than one horror movie and,
inevitably, adult films both animated and live-action. But forget those for now,
and forget, too, Tarsem Singh's ill-conceived Mirror, Mirror from earlier this
year.
The Grimms' old fable may form the backbone for Snow White and the Huntsman, the
feature-film debut of director Rupert Sanders, but he's aiming for something
larger, and more epic: for Middle Earth, for Narnia, for Westeros. And while
Sanders does not quite hit his bullseye, he's not terribly far off. If you, like
me, were disheartened when Guillermo del Toro detached himself from directing
The Hobbit, you may find some measure of consolation here. Sanders does not
(yet) share del Toro's gifts, but he, too, has an eye for the beautiful and the
grotesque, and for that entrancing borderline where the two meet: a verdant
glade where the mushrooms have eyes; an Ent-like beast resembling four tons of
predatory landscape; a villain who, when struck, bursts into a murder (has the
term ever seemed more apt?) of crows.
The rudiments of the story are all in place: A king and queen have a beloved and
beautiful daughter named Snow White (Kristen Stewart) and while she is still a
girl, the queen dies. The filmmakers have turned the dials up to 11, however,
when it comes to the wicked stepmother, Ravenna (Charlize Theron), who takes the
queen's place. We first encounter Ravenna launching an attack on the kingdom
with a small band of obsidian warriors; when her forces are defeated, she poses
as their helpless, brutalized captive. The king, moved by pity and something
stronger than pity, quickly brings her into his castle and into his bed. There,
alas, his coitus is promptly interrupted by the dagger she plants in his
chest. Ravenna opens the city gates, brings in her genuine army, and begins her
dark reign.
It's a trick, we learn, she has performed many times before. Ravenna's great
beauty is timeless, or at least subject to regular refurbishment. This she
accomplishes in part by bathing in a thick, milky liquid (shades of the
Hungarian Countess Erzsébet Báthory's reputed baths in virgins' blood). And, as
any serious beauty regimen requires more than a single component, she also has a
habit of sucking the youth, Dementor-like, out of the odd pretty girl now and
then. One such prematurely wizened lass winds up in a castle cell across the
hall from our heroine: Snow White, face to face with a living portrait of Dorian
Gray.
Snow White escapes the castle by way of the sewers, like Andy Dufresne flushing
himself out of Shawshank State Prison. One conveniently located pale white horse
later, she finds herself in The Dark Forest, which is just as unappealing as you
might suppose from the name: animated trees, toxic vapors, beetle hordes, bats
and things worse than bats. The queen's men fear the forest themselves, so the
queen hires a hunter familiar with the woods (Chris Hemsworth) to find Snow
White and to bring her back. He accomplishes the former, but has second thoughts
about the latter.
And so it spins outward, with Snow White and her Huntsman fleeing, trailed by
soldiers led by Ravenna's doting brother (and, yes, there's more than a whiff of
Cersei and Jaime Lannister to the relationship between the blond royal
siblings). One by one, the familiar trappings are rolled out: the magic mirror,
the dreamless slumber that begins with an apple and ends with a kiss, and, of
course, the dwarves. Lest you recoil at this last thought, let me assure you
that, against all probability, the dwarves are among the best elements of the
film. Surely comparable talent has never been assembled in seven packages so
small, however much they may be reduced by digital wizardry: Ian McShane, Ray
Winstone, Toby Jones, Nick Frost, Eddie Marsan, and Bob Hoskins (in one of his
best roles in decades). And if that last dwarf, Gus, bears a nagging resemblance
to Brendan Gleeson, that would be because he's played by the great Dubliner's
son, Brian.
Would that the regular-sized characters were quite so memorable. Hemsworth is
sturdy but unremarkable as the Huntsman, having traded in Thor's hammer for a
hatchet. Theron is rather good as usual. The temptation to play the evil queen
for most actresses would be to dial up the performance to 11. Here, Theron knows
when to bluster but also when to stew quietly. Take, for example, the obligatory
“mirror mirror on the wall” scene. Theron paces back and forth in front of the
mirror while delivering the line, looking like an anxious caged lion. The choice
to do this brings a small twinge of anxiety to the character. It's a nice aside.
And two British Sams—Spruell and Claflin, respectively—do yeoman's work as
Ravenna's smirky brother and Snow White's would-be champion.
And Kristen Stewart? I'm no particular fan, but I found her performance
adequate—at least until she offers her tepid variation on the St. Crispin's Day
speech. Yes, she still seems more Bella that Katniss, and this Snow White is no
Bella. But Stewart largely disavows the tics and tells her best-known role
entailed—the gnawed-on lip, the downcast eyes—in favor of a more forthright
relationship with the camera. And while it is true that her girl-next-door
prettiness is a somewhat awkward fit for the title of "fairest of them
all"—especially compared to Theron's glimmering perfection—the contrast is
clearly deliberate.
Still, Snow White and the Huntsman rises (mostly) and falls (occasionally) on
the vision of director Sanders. Some, no doubt, will object to the film's
self-seriousness and lack of intentional humor. And it's true we must suffer
through such clunkers as "The land died and, with it, hope," and "Her innocence
and purity can destroy you," for just over two hours—about 15 minutes longer
than would be optimal.
It's the look of the film that ultimately lingers, though. Shot largely in
Wales, in multitudinous shades of gray (a convenient intersection with faddish
fiction), Snow White and the Huntsman is a credit to the visual imagination of
Sanders and cinematographer Greig Fraser. The movie offers a Jacksonian—that's
Peter, not Andrew—sense of scale and topography, and, tucked within it, a litany
of small wonders: a downy emerald snake covered with moss, a great white stag
with tree limbs for antlers, a tiny fishing village enshrouded first in mist and
later in fire. This directorial debut from Sanders is not for everyone, and not
without flaw. But it offers powerful glimpses of what might yet be to come. |
