Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (In Latvian: Ansītis un Grietina: Raganu mednieki)
Oz Perkins' latest, unceremoniously dumped into January, is a revisionist Grimm story as atmospheric as it is thin.
The original fairy tales documented by the Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen were often bloody, dark stories. As time passed, and we decided that children were too fragile for the originals, we reshaped them into toothless Disney stories of romance and happy endings. And as society began to critique the passive nature of these saccharine protagonists, the 2010s gave us badass butt-kicking makeovers for our heroes, like Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters.
At the dawn of the century’s third decade, however, we see fairy tales leaning harder into their older, more folkloric elements, crafting stories that mine terror out of feeling decidedly old and out-of-step with our understanding of the world. It happened with The Witch, and now we’ve got Gretel & Hansel, directed by Oz Perkins (son of Anthony), which opts for an eerie atmosphere and a decidedly dark interpretation of its source material.
The movie opens with one fairy tale framing another: Gretel’s favorite childhood story of a young child, beset by illness in their infancy. In a desperate bid to save the child’s life, her father takes her to a local witch. While the witch saves her life, she also gives the child the power of prophecy and witchcraft. As the child grows, so does her power and evil, until the townsfolk have little choice but to exile her to the woods. Continue Reading →
Nine Days (In Latvian: Deviņas dienas)
Edson Oda's debut feature about a group of souls looking to be born into the real world is a great premise with pretty good execution.
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.)
Tones, worldviews, inspirations both obvious and implicit—it’s notable when something juggles a medley of ideas. They signal a larger ambition even when they don’t work out. Such leads to a general rule of thumb: the farther a movie’s parts are from one another, the more conversation it’ll stimulate. Then there’s Edson Oda’s Nine Days, which, while not narratively or thematically disparate, follows suit for a while but not by the end.
That isn’t to say it’s a messy movie. It’s actually quite tidy, and that’s the largest issue for a debut film that flirts with its own perspective without fully committing to one. By trying to ground its moral and ethical quandaries in something universal, it reveals its own perspective only to undo it by the end. While steady in how it approaches each character, it maintains an objective viewpoint before procuring its own perspective—until it takes the easy way out. Continue Reading →
Paterson (In Latvian: Patersons)
Every month, we at The Spool select a filmmaker to explore in greater depth — their themes, their deeper concerns, how their works chart the history of cinema and the filmmaker’s own biography. For January we’re celebrating the work of godfather of independent film Jim Jarmusch. Read the rest of our coverage here.
“What does a poet look like?”
The first (and only) documentary I ever made asked this very simple question. To answer, I lined up the poets from my creative writing program—from the sporty sorority sister to the quiet bespectacled shaggy-haired dude—and simply… asked. Their answers? Continue Reading →
Promising Young Woman (In Latvian: Daudzsološa jauna sieviete)
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.) Continue Reading →
Never Rarely Sometimes Always (In Latvian: Nekad, reti, dažreiz, vienmēr)
(This review is part of our coverage of the 2020 Sundance Film Festival.) Continue Reading →
Zola (In Latvian: Zola)
Janicza Bravo's retelling of the 2015 viral Twitter thread boasts great performances and surprisingly solid filmmaking, even if it ends on a shrug.
In 2015, 20-year-old stripper A’Ziah “Zola” Wells met a sex worker named Jessica. Both in Detroit at the time, the two bonded over their “shared hoeism” and established something of a rapport. They spent the night dancing together; they made some money. Fast-forward a couple of hours later and Jessica is inviting her to go dance in Miami, purportedly to make thousands of dollars in one night.
This, of course, wasn’t half of it. They got involved with pimps, some gang-bangers, murder, attempted suicide, and oodles of prostitution cash—at least according to Wells’ 148-tweet thread that went viral. She’s since gone on the record to say that she turned up some of the story to 11, but guess what? Now there’s a movie credited as “Based on the Tweets by A’Ziah ‘Zola’ King,” bringing you about what you’d expect and mostly for the better.
Granted, a lot of this has a lot to do with one's tolerance for ridiculousness. Those intrigued are likely to have fun. It's raunchy, crass, and stylized, and in the pantheon of stranger-than-fiction stories, this is one to stand out. But if you want a jaunt that signals good things to come from its newcomers and further cement the talents of those already established, this is that too. Zola is aptly aggro while also about something: about race, about class, about predation from the preyed upon. And yet, it runs wonderfully. Just make sure you’re ready for a few bumps. Continue Reading →