After more than a century of cinema when everything that means cinematic language has been experimented by the great film-makers, when we can say that we saw everything, paradoxically, some directors are interested in making silent movies. The one who started is Michel Hazanavicius and his film The Artist (2011) and Pablo Berger with Blancanieves (2012). Although these movies are tributes made for silent films the risk that these movies would be rejected is big therefore the ticket-offices put a poster where it’s written that the movie is black and white and silent.

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Blancanieves young

The director’s motivation for a silent film Blancanieves is strong: the script deals with bullfighters in Sevilla of the 20s. The director chose this Grimm tale to underline the aspect of folklore: the famous bullfighter Antonio Villalta (paralyzed after an accident in the ring) has a daughter with his wife who dies when giving birth. The girl gets in the care of her step-mother who, in the end, commands that the girl should be killed.

“The ranger” drowns her, but she is saved by a bullfighter dwarf who keeps her in a caravan, together with the other dwarfs. Blancanieves (they give her this name, since she suffers from amnesia) jumps in the ring to protect one of the dwarfs that was attacked by a bull. She does it instinctively, since she learnt how to do it from her father.

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Blancanieves and the dwarfs

The dwarfs are impressed, the public is impressed so they become a group. The moment they get in the ring in Sevilla a man recognizes her and her memories come back. We see here in a montage with very alert flashbacks that she must continue what she started: she is Carmen, the daughter of the famous bullfighter (we can look at her as Bizet’s Carmen). The mirror is a magazine where the step-mother finds out about the fight and plans the poisoned apple.

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The caravan where Blancanieves lives with the dwarfs

Any narration has at its base the elements that help constitute a fairytale, even if they are under a different shape. The fairytale, through its nature, can bring the stories  a feeling of universality, each story can easily be transposed in a different vision. Blancanieves respects very carefully all the important moments (the absence, the interdiction, trespassing the interdiction, finding the villain, his evil intentions etc.) only changing the ending: the princess bites the poisoned apple but she doesn’t respond to any kiss, but ends up as a doll in a morbid circus show.

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Spain’s culture can be met in many parts of the world due to its colonies, therefore elements like toreo, the music and the flamenco dancers, with all the cante, toque, baile and palmas, the Spanish carnival couldn’t be absent. The director puts all of these elements altogether with well-known images of the White Snow: pricking the finger, the mirror, the key-hole as well as elements and characters that are emblematic for the story.

The steady shots are very common for the silent films, the use of super impression (special effects used at the beginning of cinema), the close ups and extremely close ups with large reactions are all marks of the first decades of film history. There is a grotesque-romantic vision of the film which is easily underlined by a music that fits very well.

Blancanieves reminds the audience of childhood, it is in a way very close to Pan’s Labyrinth (2006, Guillermo del Toro), only before the war.

And here is the trailer

by Diana Vasile

Diana Vasile studies Audio-Video Communication at the National University of Theatre and Film. She likes writing since she was little (when she was 10 she wrote the sequel of Harry Potter, since she longed for it). The passion for film appeared when she was a teenager and melted into writing scripts. She is an autodidact in her spare time, but she loves parties, driving her car, cooking, cleaning and watching TV series.