Hello and welcome to Fairy Tale Friday. Are you sitting comfortably? Good. Then I’ll begin.
Last week we looked at a spectacular period piece
starring Sigourney Weaver that showed deep emotions and a true look at what
grief does to you. I had really high hopes for this one as it stars Miranda
Richardson as the stepmother, but I was ultimately disappointed.
Snow White: The Fairest of Them All is
a 2001 fantasy adventure film that was produced by Hallmark Entertainment and it shows. The film had
a theatrical release in Europe but the following year it aired in the United
States on ABC as part of their series
on The Wonderful World of Disney which also
is not surprising.
What is surprising is that it was co-written and
directed by Caroline Thompson who wrote the screenplays
for three of my favourite films—Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before
Christmas and the Corpse Bride. What happened here, I know not but the dialogue
is flatter than a pancake that has been run over by a lorry and the costumes
are that generic “ye olde tymes” period of vague clothes that are just
suggestive of some general unspecific past.
As I said Miranda Richardson plays the stepmother and
a few times you can hear a bit of Queenie from Blackadder slip into her
inflection. Snow White herself is Kristin Kreuk whom you might remember from
Smallville and her father is played by Tom Irwin who was the dad in My
So-Called Life! Three of the seven dwarves are well known actors—Warwick Davies
(Willow among other things), Vincent Schiavelli as the not so dwarfish one and Michael
J Anderson whom you probably know as the dwarf who spoke backwards in Twin
Peaks but whom I think of as staring in Julie Taymor’s stunning reimagining of
Edgar Allan Poe’s Hop Frog entitled Fools Fire. The actors do their best, bless
‘em, but the dialogue is rather clunky.
But it is not all bad news. There are some interesting
effects. The magic mirror is a small
piece of broken mirror set in a spiderweb shaped wooden frame which acts as a
mirror, a flying weapon and a magic wand. There are a series of wall mirrors
that reflect like a fun house of images that can either enforce your narcissism
or taunt you into insanity.
The special effects are a mixed bag. There is some
great prosthetic makeup, but it is like they ran out of spirit gum as all the
prosthetics seem to gape away from the actor’s face as they speak.
Reviews were mixed which was no surprise. Here is a
summary courtesy of Wikipedia that I will inert comments into.
John and Josephine deeply wish to have a
child and when she is born with skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood and
hair as black as ebony, they name her Snow White. However, Josephine dies in
childbirth, leaving John alone with their child. Note:
I
loved the opening as it was on a bed of white apple blossoms that had fallen
off a nearby tree like snow instead of actual snow that the mother bleeds on to
make her wish, but that is all the blood we see as she gives birth in a
spotless bed and then dies without bleeding out after having a traumatic birth so
we were back to the unreality of white sheets and no placenta that so many of
these tales seem to have.
In
the winter, John struggles to find food for his daughter, eventually collapsing
and shedding a tear over a frozen lake, which frees a creature known as the
Green-Eyed One. Note: The guy who plays
the Green-Eyed one is the voice of Mr Krabs on SpongeBob SquarePants. His prosthetics
are quite good but they have a tendency to gap.
As thanks
for freeing him, the Green-Eyed One asks John what he needs. John requests milk
for his daughter, and the Green-Eyed One grants his wish. John then asks to
have his wife back, calling Josephine his Queen, but the Green-Eyed One cannot
resurrect the dead. However, he says he can give John a Queen, and John
suddenly finds himself a king with his own kingdom. Note: In a sort
of “this is not my beautiful kingdom” take on the Talking Heads, ministers
suggest perhaps he just had a bump on the head and forgot he was king of this
little country. So did the Green-Eyed One conjure up a country out of thin air
and then enchant all the ministers to gaslight the new king until he believes
it or did he bump off a ruler of an existing kingdom and threaten the ministers
if they ever revealed to the new king that he didn’t use to be the king?
Since the Green-Eyed One is obligated to
fulfil John's wishes, he pays a visit to Elspeth, his hideous spellcasting
sister. He transforms her into a beautiful young woman who can now marry John
and become his queen and Snow White's stepmother. The creature also provides
Elspeth with a magical mirror that allows her to see others unseen and to
deceive John. Note: she is truly ugly
with large warty lesions all over her face and she hates looking in the mirror
and feels like the Green-Eyed one is taunting her when he tries to make her
look at herself. So her vanity issues are less about aging and being the
fairest in the land and more to do with she is so excited to finally not be
hideous that she gets obsessed with her looks. He forces her to shatter the
mirror that showed her reflection as beautiful and glass rains down from the
sky and a piece of the mirror falls in Snow White’s father’s eye which makes
him see her as beautiful and overlook her less than appealing personality. She also has a yard full of garden gnomes
which will be important later. Watch that scene here:
As
years pass, Elspeth forms a good relationship with her new husband and
stepdaughter, now a beautiful sixteen-year-old princess. However, Elspeth is
vain and keeps a room full of magical mirrors which assure her each day that
she is the fairest of them all whenever she asks. Note:
This
was an interesting scene and gave Miranda a bit of range in that she had to say
“Mirror, mirror on the wall who is the fairest of them all?” in about a dozen
different ways. She also has the small hand-held mirror cum magic wand and
killer flying object I mentioned above where only her face comes out of the
front of the mirror and the back stays flat and wooden. The wall of mirrors
each with her reflection all coming out in 3-D must have blown their special
effects budget. There is also a scene where her husband who is perpetually rubbing
his eye has the little piece of glass fall out after 16 years of it poking his
cornea and begins to see her clearly for the first time and realise how he has
neglected his daughter as he only had eyes for his wife. What triggered the
glass to fall out is seeing his beautiful wife reflected in all the mirrors
gave him a bit of *schwing* in the old codpiece and he tries to initiate sexy
times but she is repulsed and shoves him away quite hard and the glass falls
out and he sees clearly for the first time in ages. Watch that scene here:
When Prince Alfred arrives in the kingdom
and falls in love with Snow White, Elspeth is furious to discover that images
of Snow White are appearing in her mirrors, which means that her stepdaughter
is the fairest of them all. Note: Snow
White has a great speech to Prince Alfred about how she doesn’t want to
be loved for just being beautiful—that looks are not as important as being
kind. Miranda Richardson SHAMELESSLY flirts with Alfred going as far as saying
how much older and more boring her husband is. All the while the husband (now
sans mirror in his eye) is giving that “Um…I am right here” sort of look to the
camera. She takes the sliver of mirror and tries to spike Prince Alfred’s drink
so it could get imbedded in his heart and he would love her not her
stepdaughter, but he clumsily drops the cup of punch while rubbernecking to see
Snow White. The sliver of glass pops out and lands in the eye of Hector one of
the servants. He in turn falls head over heels in love with her and agrees to
do whatever she wants in exchange for a snog.
Driven with jealousy, Elspeth orders a hunter,
Hector, to take Snow White into the forest and kill her, and then return with
Snow White's heart for her to consume. In the meantime, Elspeth also transforms
Alfred into a bear. Note: This is a nice touch as it mimics the
fairy tale Snow White and Rose Red about a prince that is enchanted in the form
of a bear. We see lots of scenes of a large bear roaming the woods and
mournfully calling out trying to say “Hey, wait! It’s me Alfred!” but it just
comes out like “Grrrrrr!” Then the stepmother makes him walk through the magic
mirror wand and he turns really tiny and she imprisons him in a snow globe
which floats down river until a racoon find it and jostles him about.
Unable to kill Snow White, Hector presents
Elspeth with the heart of a wild boar instead. When she learns the truth,
Elspeth kills Hector, imprisons John in her mirrors and stifles Snow White with
an enchanted ribbon. Note: Instead of being a pedlar peddling her
wares and enticing Snow White with a ribbon, she just leaves in lying on a rock
in the woods and Snow White thinks “Hey, here’s a lovely lavender ribbon that
someone has just conveniently left lying around in this deep dark forest. I
know! I will tie it round my waist like a generic costume sash!” Then it
squeezes her innards and stops her breathing. Interestingly, she has not met
the dwarfs yet. Every other version I know this event happens after she was
living with the dwarfs. Watch this scene here:
Snow White is saved by seven dwarfs, each
named after the days of the week and possessing the power to transform into a
rainbow to move from one place to another (but are only capable if all seven of
them are present) as well as control the weather. The eldest is Sunday, who is
a victim of one of Elspeth's spells that has left half of him as a garden
gnome. Note: Remember those garden
gnomes in the stepmother’s garden? They were friends of the dwarfs and Sunday
had gone to find out where they had disappeared to. He got caught and was
transformed to a stone statue. The evil Queen had brought them with her to her
new husband’s palace and Sunday in his garden gnome guise was Snow White’s only
friend growing up, so he recognises her and vouches for her to the other dwarfs.
When Snow White didn’t die from the strangling ribbon, he became half dwarf
again and although the makeup is effective in making half his face look like it
is still a statue, it gapes AWFULLY. There were times I thought I could probably
fit my finger in the gap as he talked which is not good.
The
dwarfs allow Snow White to care for their home, though the dwarf Wednesday is
initially suspicious. When Elspeth learns that Snow White is still alive, she
prepares a poisoned apple and transforms into Snow White's deceased mother,
Josephine, with the magic mirror the Green-Eyed One gave her. Aided by Monday,
who is turned into a garden gnome afterward, Elspeth (disguised as Josephine)
finds Snow White and convinces her to eat the enchanted and poisoned apple,
which seemingly kills Snow White. Note: There
are lots of tales (including this one) where one half of the apple is white and
the other red. The transformation scene on the apple was a decent effect, but
who in their right mind is going to eat an apple which looks like someone has covered
half of it in Tippex? It is also a really good move to have her take the guise
of the child’s own mother. Though she can’t recall her mother’s face being like
5 minutes old when she died, there is a *feeling* of warmth and familiarity
about the woman who brings her an apple. Watch the apple transformation scene
here:
With her task finished, Elspeth tries to
use the mirror to become the Queen again but she instead reverts to her true
form, even more loathsome than before. The Green-Eyed One appears and reveals
that her evil deed has cost Elspeth her beauty. Meanwhile, the dwarfs, unable
to revive Snow White, place her in a coffin of ice and leave her near Monday's
statue. When she receives a kiss of true love from Prince Alfred (in his bear
form) she is revived. Note: Sunday
the dwarf also recognises the bear as Alfred and vouches for him too. He breaks
the snow globe allowing the bear to take its full-sized form again. Then when
the Alfred sees Snow White encased in ice, he painstakingly licks through the ice
to give her the big wet sloppy kiss of true love.
The spells on Alfred, Sunday and Monday
are broken and Elspeth's mirrors shatter, freeing John. Elspeth is cornered and
killed by the gnomes she had turned to stone, who have been released from their
enchantments. Freed from Elspeth, the Green-Eyed One is able to go his way.
Snow White and Alfred live happily ever after while the dwarfs decide to move
on to find Sleeping Beauty. Watch the Queen’s demise
here:
That’s all for this week. I really wanted to like it more than I did. However, if you are interested, you can watch the whole film here:
But stay tuned for a version next week that is a modern black and white silent film from Spain.
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