Fairy Tale Friday--Snow White and the Huntsman (Charlize Theron, 2012)

Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.

We are nearly to the end of our Fairy Tale Friday look at Snow White. Today we look at what was advertised to be a feminist film version of our tale entitled Snow White and the Huntsman starring Kristin Stewart as Snow White and Charlize Theron as the stepmother.

I can see why they promoted it as a feminist film—they tried to make it have overtones of women in power but in my opinion, it misses the mark. It opens with the powerful witch Ravenna (who sounds like she should have raven hair, but she is blond) tricking her way into the King’s heart. We see her tied up in a shack as if she is being held prisoner, but it is in fact all a ruse. The first glimpse we see of her is her bare foot in a shackle. My first thought was “How big are her feet??” and the answer is (according to Google) size 9.5 which feels very impressive since I am a size 3.5. But once she is back in the palace and all dressed up and out of her captive rags, she looks quite beautiful. She seems quite sweet, with a hint of nervousness as if she is worried what the country will think of her as she was only a poor captive who is marrying the King. This, in my opinion, in Theron’s best acting. Because on their wedding night she goes full on “evil voice” and announces that all men do is use, abuse and discard women. That happened to her before and she won’t let it happen again. Then she pulls out a huge bloody dagger and stabs him in the heart and she locks the young Princess in a dungeon. After that, Theron is either doing her whisper evil voice or shouty evil voice. It is a wonder she stayed so slim with all the scenery she chewed. Some of the makeup and effects are pretty good. We see her in various stages of old age makeup as her powers wax and wane. Sometimes she is young and fresh and bathing in some sort of milky liquid that looks suspiciously like paint and stealing the looks of young girls (played by Lily Cole) and sometimes she is all wrinkled and writhing on the floor in a weakened state of misery. The magic mirror was also interesting—a brass disc that turned into the melty men who oozed out of it and spoke to her.

Kristin Stewart who has been held in a dungeon for at least a decade and has lank greasy hairy and a dirty face and a tatty dress also has the most perfect blindingly white Hollywood teeth which were really distracting. All the dwarves (we will get to the problem with them in a minute) have various shades of “lived in” teeth. But she who has been held prisoner, suffers no decay. In the scenes where she has escaped and is getting increasingly muddier and dishevelled she still manages a subtle bit of lipstick. If her lips had been that shade the whole film you might think it was just rosy lips not lippy, but because several times she doesn’t have it on it is noticeable.

The problem with the dwarves is that they hired actual dwarves to do all the body shots (who were uncredited in the credits) and CGI’d full sized actor’s heads onto their bodies. ‘Nuff said.

Here is a summary by Wikipedia in which I will insert some comments.

While admiring a rose blooming in the winter, Queen Eleanor of the kingdom of Tabor pricks her finger on one of its thorns. Drops of blood fall onto the snow, and she wishes for a daughter as white as the snow, with lips as red as the blood, hair as black as a raven's wings and heart as strong as the rose. Note: One of the good things about this film is the cinematography. There are great scenes, including this one, of black trees, grey skies, white snow and blood or scarlet banners in a visual contrast. I liked how the blood active “plipped” and splashed onto the snow.

She gives birth to a daughter, Snow White, but falls ill and dies several years later. After her death, Snow White's father, King Magnus, and his army battle an invading dark army of demonic glass soldiers. Upon rescuing their prisoner Ravenna, the King becomes enchanted with her beauty and marries her. Note: The glass soldiers who shatter into shards of jet quartz are a decent CGI effect, but were a predicter of how many other noisy battles I would have to sit through. The King sees a shack where he finds Ravenna all shackled up and helpless with her size 9.5 feet. He is enchanted by her beauty but also he probably liked the feeling of being a rescuer/protector of women because they are the weaker sex.

Ravenna is in fact a powerful sorceress and the Dark Army's master. On their wedding night, Ravenna confesses there was a king much like Magnus that hurt her. She declares she cannot be a weak queen and kills Magnus before taking over the kingdom. Snow White's childhood friend William and his father, Duke Hammond, escape the castle but are unable to rescue her, and she is captured and locked away in a tower for many years. Note: Before Ravenna took over, we saw several childhood scenes between William and young Snow. They were best friends, playmates and probably promised in marriage to each other to seal a future alliance. There is a scene of them climbing an apple tree and him teasing her with an apple before biting it himself which is undoubtedly foreshadowing.

Watch the wedding night stabbing here: 

Tabor is ruined under Queen Ravenna's rule. She periodically drains the youth from the kingdom's young women in order to maintain a spell cast over her as a child by her mother, which allows her to keep her youthful beauty. Note: I was a little confused by this flashback scene—it may have been because I was worn out from all her evil voice shouting, but as best as I can understand, raiders were coming to their village to take pretty girls away (it was hard to tell as there was a long scene of banging/clanging sword fighting going on while they were talking) and her mother gifts her the gift of eternal youth so that she can somehow grow up and use that as a strength to defeat men. Who knows. But there was a nice echo in the magic potion of dropping three drops of blood into a milky cup which resembled the opening scene with the Queen pricking her finger.  

When her stepdaughter Snow White comes of age, she learns from her Magic Mirror that Snow White is destined to destroy her unless she consumes the girl's heart, which will make her immortal. Ravenna orders her brother Finn (Note: who has the worst bowl cut ever) to bring her Snow White's heart, but Snow White escapes into the Dark Forest, where Ravenna has no power. Note: The dark forest is like being on LSD. You hallucinate all sorts of scary stuff like tree branches turning into black snakes or birds trying to peck out your eyes after breathing some sort of swamp gas.

Watch the magic mirror scene here: 

Watch the dark forest drug trip here:

 Ravenna makes a bargain with Eric the Huntsman, a widower and drunkard, to capture Snow White, promising to bring his wife back to life in exchange. The Huntsman tracks down Snow White, but when Finn reveals that Ravenna does not actually have the power to revive the dead, the Huntsman helps Snow White escape. Finn gathers a band of men to find her, and the Duke and William learn that she is alive. William leaves the castle to find her, joining Finn's band as a bowman. Note: Despite being a drunkard who is dirty and dishevelled, Chris Hemsworth managed to look sexy in a rugged way with matching perfect teeth to Snow White. I guess only dwarves don’t have a dental plan.  

The Huntsman and Snow White leave the Dark Forest, where she saves his life by charming a huge troll that attacks them. They make their way to a fishing village populated by women who have disfigured themselves to make themselves useless to the Queen. Note: This bit was an interesting feminist concept to be judged by your character instead of appearance but would have liked to have seen it given more depth. Also, it stars Rachael Stirling (daughter of Diana Rigg) as the lead disfigured woman with some scars on her face but not really enough to make her that hideous.

 The Huntsman learns Snow White's true identity, and leaves her in the care of the women. He returns when he sees the village being burned down by Finn's men. Snow White and the Huntsman evade them and meet a band of eight dwarves. The blind dwarf Muir perceives that Snow White is the only person who can defeat Ravenna and end her reign.

As they travel through a fairy sanctuary, they are attacked by Finn and his men. Note: The fairy sanctuary is every bit as twee as you would expect—colourful creatures, hazy lighting, moss growing everywhere, twinkly fairy lights and a pure white stag with antlers so big he would never get in your front door if he came to visit in place of the more obvious white unicorn that is tamed by the pure female heroine.

Watch the white stage scene here: 

A battle ensues during which Finn, his men, and one of the dwarfs are killed, while William reveals himself and joins the group on their journey to Hammond's castle. Halfway there, Ravenna disguises herself as William and tempts Snow White into eating a poisoned apple. She flees when the Huntsman and William discover her. Note: This scene was great. I loved that it was the Queen disguised as William not an old crone that gave her the apple. She takes it from him as it harks back to a flirtation that had when she was a tomboy up a tree with him as children and it is truly a surprise when it turns out to be the witch.

Watch the poison apple scene here:

William kisses Snow White but she does not wake up (though no one notices the tear that comes from one of her eyes). Her body is taken to Hammond's castle. The Huntsman professes his regret for not being there to save her, as her heart and strength remind him of his late wife, Sara. He kisses her and does not notice a second tear fall from one of her eyes, as his kiss was second of true love needed. Snow White awakens and rallies the Duke's army to mount a siege against Ravenna.

The dwarves infiltrate the castle through the sewers and open the gates, allowing the Duke's army inside. Snow White confronts Ravenna, but is overpowered. Ravenna is about to kill her when Snow White uses a move the Huntsman taught her and mortally wounds Ravenna, defeating her for good. The kingdom once again enjoys peace and harmony as Snow White is crowned queen. Note: I was disappointed that she didn’t end up marrying the Huntsman as I was hoping this was a tale of bridging the class divide. But we know from the sequel (which bears quite a resemblance to Frozen) that she marries William.

For a laugh, watch an Honest Trailer here for the film and the sequel:

 

 

That’s all for this week. Stay tuned next week for our penultimate blog about Snow White where we look at the Disney film.