THE WORD ON POP CULTURE
  • Home
  • Movies
  • TV
  • Music
  • Sports
  • Pop Culture History
  • Shop

Gretel & Hansel

2/14/2020

0 Comments

 
by Philip Price
Picture: Sophia Lillis in
Director: Osgood Perkins
Starring: Sophia Lillis, Samuel Leakey & Alice Krige
Rated: PG-13
Runtime: 1 hour & 27 minutes
The breadcrumbs never led anywhere good. And in Osgood Perkins' beautifully haunting “Gretel & Hansel” - which the son of Anthony Perkins directed - there are no literal breadcrumbs, but only the seeming promise of certain death wherever the adolescent Gretel (Sophia Lillis) and her even younger brother, Hansel (Samuel Leakey), choose to go.
​
At a slim 87 minutes, the story both hews very close to that classic Grimm fairy tale while also taking its own liberties in advancing Gretel forward in age and lending her the role of a potential apprentice to the witch she and her brother stumble upon in the woods rather than both of them serving as the next in a long line of delectable dining experiences for the fantastically wicked Alice Krige who plays said storied witch in this iteration.

This slightly altered narrative lends the film enough treats (figuratively speaking) to entice the audience in the plight of the children and the dilemma Lillis' Gretel ultimately must deal with, but the star of the show is Galo Olivares' cinematography as the film looks like what a Terrence Malick horror movie might look like if produced and/or distributed by A24. And I say "horror" with slight pause as there are certainly moments and imagery intended to elicit a scare, but this is more interested in the elaborate and ornamental gothic style that naturally elicits a creepy and uncomfortable tone more so than it does a straight-up scary one. And given the uneasy nature of the story and where all is inevitably heading, the cramped aspect ratio yet expansive lens Olivares uses allows for that visual prowess to not only be disturbingly pretty, but part of the storytelling; emphasizing the uneasiness the children begin to feel in that house in the woods where everything is too good to be true yet there's too much for it to mean nothing at all. Gretel & Hansel essentially feeding (again, figuratively speaking) the audience the idea that these children escape the terror with a lesson learned, but implying that to come of age surrounded by adults who care little for you and only how you might benefit them (as well as yes, trying to eat you or your sibling) would never leave one without scars that will eventually need to be tended to.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    October 2013
    August 2013
    December 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012


​
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • Movies
  • TV
  • Music
  • Sports
  • Pop Culture History
  • Shop