Blancanieves (2012)

“The best Spanish film of the year” – Pedro Almodóvar

From Friday 12th July Pablo Berger’s Blancanieves (2012) will be screened for two weeks (ending on Thursday 25th July) at Watershed, Bristol.

Over the course of the last few months much has been said about Blancanieves especially after the huge success of The Artist (2011) and the continuing interest of the silent era whether the films are from Hollywood, Europe or the rest of the world. To find out more check out Silent London’s blog post.

And just in case you still don’t know what Blancanieves is all about:

‘Forget the big budget, effects-laden recent Hollywood adaptations of children’s bedtime stories – this is the real deal, an original, silent, black and white take on Snow White that examines the much darker aspects of the Brothers Grimm fairy tale. Set in Seville in the 1920s, a famous bullfighter is widowed and wounded on the same day. Grief-stricken, he can’t stand the sight of his baby daughter, and she is sent to live with her grandmother. When she passes away, however, the daughter, Carmen, goes to live with her father and his monstrously wicked new wife (Maribel Verdu, a delectable villainess), who exiles her into the basement and forbids her from seeing anyone.

Father and daughter meet in secret, though, and he teaches her his trade. A new page is turned when Carmen (Macarena Garcia), now a teenager, joins a troupe of bullfighting dwarfs, and we go back into the bullring… The sumptuous, flamenco-inflected score is superbly expressive, helping to pull us further into a spider’s web of poison apples, erotic envy and Iberian passions. This menacing, gothic melodrama has deservedly scooped 10 Goyas (the Spanish equivalent of an Oscar®) and is sure to cast a spell over UK audiences.’ (Watershed)