Gretel & Hansel (2020)

 

***/*****

I started with just the film images because Director Oz Perkins and his brilliant art direction, photography (making great use of natural light or at least the imitation of natural light with candles and what bit of sun that might sneak in through the thick, dense forest and darkened cottage of Krige's mysterious hermitting Lady of the Deep Woods (my nickname)), and location aesthetic should be on full display. Gretel is played by rising Lillis of "Nancy Drew" and "It" fame, the red hair cut short, her performance carefully cultivated and character forced to grow up beyond her years due to a deceased father and uncaring, defeated mother. Leakey as Hansel is the too trusting, easily manipulated little boy in need of guidance and protection by his older sister. Krige as Holda is too intimidating, suspicious, and her whispery voice speaks often in riddles with sinister phrase. There's a history about the Enchantress with witchcraft and spellcasting that when granting a request, the one asking and the one benefiting are cursed...a monkeys paw situation. Holda's daughter was spared by the Enchantress but the father had to embrace darkness in order for his daughter to be "healed" of her illness. Holda is granted powers by her daughter, and those around her wind up dead. So not only is the daughter moved into the wood to be left but so is Holda, and children and teens that eventually come into her territory often never leave alive.

This film is a triumph of visual beauty, every bit the Grimm dark fairy tale it promises to be. The locations such as Ireland and British Columbia are clearly painted on Perkins' canvas with heavy attention to what he and his team can do with flame, light through stained glass, decaying branches with dying leaves, narrow, tall doors reaching high, cottage architecture warped with walls titled and distorted, the sun burning through the rooms an amber hue. This is all accompanied by camera work that gives us strong closeups and cold vantage points with nuanced facial expressions and spoken with delicate tone despite the villainy revealed. 

Jessica De Gouw is the actual Holda, using the disguise of Krige to draw in children to cook and eat. During her time in the wood, at the cottage, Gretel developed her own power, seemingly able to combat Holda, who aimed to burn Hansel.

The film is only 82 minutes but the pacing makes it feel much longer. The story itself is hard to really expand much further anyway truth be told and Oz Perkins seemed to even stretch it for this film. I thought it was a thing of exquisite beauty, but I wasn't as absorbed into the substance of the tale or characters as much as how the film is shot and lit. Still, all in all, "Gretel and Hansel" was a feast for the eyes so I can't take that away from it. 

How Gretel and Hansel end up in the territory is a result of a mother threatening violence if they don't leave, seemingly clear that her own future is dire. A housemaid job hoped for is undermined when the creepy owner of the home, established as the man of great wealth within the locality, not-too-subtly requests for Gretel's virginity. The mom doesn't hesitate to warn Gretel that staying at home isn't an option. Narrowly escaping a ferocious pale, hideous man-thing thanks to a local hunter quite the marksman with a bow and arrow, they are given advice towards a community which is interrupted by the detour to Holda's.