mindfields :: a journal about ideas and alternative education

The Real Brothers Grimm
Jakob Ludwig Carl Grimm and Wilhelm Karl Grimm were born in 1785 and 1786, respectively, in Hanau near Frankfurt in Hesse. They were among the six children of a prosperous lawyer. The family was reduced to poverty after the death of their father and grandfather.

Old Tales, New Reality
With a growing brigade of young nieces and nephews in charge of my life, I have been re-acquainted with fairytales. There are kings, queens, handsome princes and beautiful princesses. There are witches, elves, fairies and animals that can talk. Stories in which, without exception, someone gets poisoned or murdered or dies horribly. If no one is poisoned or murdered, then there is the huge chasm between the haves and the have-nots. The ugly princess is invariably the wicked princess (Snow White’s beautiful stepmother being the only noteworthy exception). The Little Mermaid throws herself into the sea instead of stabbing the cad Prince.

THE BROTHERS GRIMM
118 mins rating: PG-13
Director: Terry Gilliam Cast: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Jonathan Pryce, Lena Headey, Peter Stormare, Monica Bellucci

This is not a film about the real Grimm brothers. Instead, it is a fairy tale about Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm, inset with several other interconnected fairy tales. What could be a more fitting ode to the brothers whose riveting tales have forever altered the way children think of cottages in the wood, or visits to granny’s house.
So, in Terry Gilliam’s version, we have the hard-nosed Will and the trusting Jake, wheeling-dealing their way through early 19th century Germany, using fakery and hired actors to rid villages of witches and curses. In return for bag of coins, of course. It is interesting to see the lead cast in unexpected roles. Damon is the brash, fast-talking ladies man and the hunky Ledger is the painfully shy younger brother who will one day immortalize their experiences into fairy tale.
The tricksters run up against more than they bargained for when they meet Napolean’s man in Germany, the cold Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce) who sends them off to a forest where uncanny events make children of the village disappear. Slight problem: this time the forest seems to be really enchanted. Complete with the insurmountable tower inhabited by a cruel queen (the resplendent Bellucci) who wants eternal youth, at any cost. It is left to the stoic but comely huntress (Lena Headey) to help the clueless brothers navigate through the wilderness.

Their time in the village marks the coming of age of the brothers. Their cowardly bluster gives way to a genuine sense of responsibility towards protecting the young - precursor to a career of writing dark, cautionary fairy tales!

Gilliam’s direction makes for over-the-top visual stimulation. When you look at the movie, it looks like an illustrated fairy tale. Its texture is breathtaking (the kind whose pleasures grow with repeated viewings). And in the midst of this, the embryo of various Grimm’s fairy ta les - Jack and the Beanstalk, Hansel and Gretel, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella - all woven slyly into the storyline.

The brothers are alternately besieged and bewildered by strange forces and creatures of other worlds, and they often struggle to break on through to the other side…at which point the storyline falls apart at the seams. Despite Gilliam’s flourishes, he never quite manages to stitch together all the subplots; some of the performances are caricature-like and over-the-top (Stormare, for one), and the pop-psychological explanation for the brothers’ interest in the use/abuse of enchantment never rings true. The fractured screenplay (by Ehren Kruger) doesn’t quite do justice to the idea that old fairy tales might be all that’s left of a powerful, pre-Christian world.

There is an eerie quality to the Grimm stories that had been lacking in their previous cinematic renditions. ‘The Brothers Grimm’ is as dark as the fairy tales themselves.It is a quality that maverick director Terry Gilliam (Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Brazil, 12 Monkeys) is renowned for. The result is sometimes scattered, sometimes magical, but always a sumptuous visual feast (scruffy CGI wolf notwithstanding).