Gretel & Hansel is a slight reframing of the fairy tale, Hansel & Gretel, with Gretel as the older sister protagonist. I was drawn to the film because it was promoted as a horror film, which j’adore, and the cast seemed fairly amazing. I usually do not like child actors, but Sophia Lillis was one of the best parts of It. Alice Krige is a power house and was riveting as the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact, but two actors were listed as playing The Witch. My schedule was fairly busy the weekend of January 31st, and I celebrated the fact that there were only two new movies that I was interested in. Unfortunately I took the well-marketed, worst road, The Rhythm Section, which you should not see under any circumstances, and not this film because of theater location. Regrets, I have a few.
I wish that I saw Gretel & Hansel on the big screen because it is as if Ari Aster, Nicolas Winding Refn’s The Neon Demon and a younger, fresher Guillermo del Toro had a polygamous relationship and had a beautiful, cinematic baby while still feeling visually innovative and not derivative. Gretel & Hansel deserves all the unearned praise Robert Eggers received when he released The Witch in terms of an elegant narrative. It exorcises the misogynistic undertones of Lars von Trier’s Antichrist while retaining its provocative nature in a more palatable way. It takes Panos Cosmatos’ Mandy’s dream logic with the restraint of a person who is high on life, not pharmaceuticals. I watched it soon after it became available for home viewing and am glad that I gave myself enough time to watch it around three times within twenty-four hours. I would have loved to have the time and opportunity to see it again on the big screen.
In the interest of full disclosure, I was exhausted that weekend and constantly fell asleep while watching the film. Gretel & Hansel bore some responsibility because it is an oneiric film. It is not just a superb film because it shows rather than tells. It is also a film that tells in the vein of a fairy tale, and most fairy tales are told to children to make them go to sleep. The film’s narration reflects the journey of the characters so the voice that dominates any particular point in the film is the voice dominating the action. While many critiqued the film’s deliberate pacing, I found it deliciously demonstrative of the progress of the protagonist and an effective way of relating to her by unapologetically stepping in her shoes. Gretel rarely knows when she is dreaming or actually experiencing the surreal events around her so a viewer could be just as baffled as her by what he or she is seeing while getting it on a subconscious level.
Gretel & Hansel can be divided into four parts: the preamble which tells an unfamiliar fairy tale that provides a framework for the story; the first act which establishes the familiar world of the titular characters; the middle act which establishes the dangers of the outside world and make it plausible why the children would accept hospitality and the final act when the danger becomes apparent and the protagonist reaches an unexpected moral crossroads. During the comfortable section, the dialogue between the siblings gradually gives way to silence as they have less to complain about, and we too as viewers are lulled into comfort by the stillness, lack of obstacles and Krige’s entrancing voice which seems to have a hidden punchline that only she seems to know. Naturally without that earlier patter, it is easier to nod off, but the intergenerational performances of Lillis and Krige is riveting. If I had to invent an acting exercise to make younger child actors better, I would send them to Krige. It is a beautiful dance. Krige dominates without overshadowing, and Lillis measures up without overdoing it.
Gretel & Hansel’s script is great so resist the urge to be lulled. There are some provocative themes that get under the viewer’s skin. The real and fairy tale world share an uncomfortable reality. During famine, people have literally eaten their children, but the movie eludes to other ways that we consume children. There is also a tantalizing concept of complex mothers that Brahms: The Boy II completely missed. This film features bad mothers, but those monstrous women are sympathetic in lashing out against children who threaten them literally or in the way that all children take from their mother: freedom, power, independence or the Damocles sword of temptation to give in to those feelings. When you get to the denouement, do not groan, but really think about the theme in a psychological way. It also works as a metaphor for Gretchen dealing with the failures of her mother to help her transition into adulthood. Mothers cannot win so at some point does a mother give up and run in the opposite direction?
Gretel & Hansel is visually delectable. The use of color as inherently dangerous was a genius choice, which was counterintuitive when the director, Oz Perkins, chose to use the color blue as a symbol for the familiar homestead, which also hides unseen dangers. Multiple stained-glass windows signified unfamiliar opulence and the coiled threat of danger. The colors reminded me of the central question in The Neon Demon, “Are you food, or are you sex?” Gretel is still a child, but old enough to be aware that these are her options until a third one is raised, one that she artfully has to strike a balance, one of wielding power, but it poses another question: can she wield power without letting it consume her? The answer is not straightforward, but it is nuanced, textured and adult. It is a coming of age story that does not just revel in triumph, but recognizes that victory carries a menace of the wielder becoming the establishment that hurt her. It ends on an ambiguous note about independence, power and division. It recognizes that in order to develop, once must be permitted to grow without responsibilities, but growth could lead to different paths that could result in opposition. Will the witch’s warnings come true?
Gretel & Hansel also uses neutral tones and black and white in more conventional ways. The children’s world is normally dominated by natural colors and is as close to black and white as a color film can be. It kind of reminded me of Wizard of Oz the stark contrast, but more organic than stylized. Gretel is shown wearing white and black is the color of the occult. The use of shapes, particularly triangles, and clothing fleshes out the visual look of the film. There is also an asymmetrical impulse in the framing of the film. Notice the candlesticks, the placement on the table along with an errant apple in the foreground, the look of the furnace, the Tardis-like ratio of interiors and exteriors.
If one question haunts me after watching Gretel & Hansel, was The Hunter good, did he set them up to see the witch or were they just bad at following directions? Because technically the witch taught them everything that he said the foresters were? “Nothing is given without something else taken away.”