Ivan Radford | On 18, Oct 2014

Director: Pablo Berger
Cast: Maribel Verdu, Sofía Oria, Macarena Garcia, Daniel Giminez Cacho
Certificate: 15

After Mirror Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman, you couldn’t be blamed for being sick of Snow White and her seven flipping dwarves. But Blancanieves is Snow White like you’ve never seen it: it’s Spanish. And silent. And black-and-white. And it features a chicken called Pepe. In short, it’s fantastic.

Antonio Villalta (Cacho) is a bullfighting legend, but when he is injured in a horrible goring and his wife dies during childbirth, his career is suddenly over. Can plucky young daughter Carmencita (Oria and, older, Garcia) pick up his cloak where he left off?

To do so, she’ll have to get past her new step-mum, the evil nurse Encarna. Wooing her way into Villalta’s widowed bed, Maribel Verdu’s villain is hilariously nasty, flouncing around in fancy clothes and batting her eyelashes like a Spanish Cruella de Ville. Naturally, she tries to have Carmencita killed, only for the wee woman to run away and end up with a troupe of bullfighting dwarves. Yes, this version of Snow White features bullfighters.

“Let’s call her Blancanieves (literally ‘Snow White’),” they decide, because it’s reminds them all of the famous story. Pablo Berger’s script is full of such witty nods to The Brothers Grimm, reworking the familiar tale into a warped and wonderfully entertaining romp. Even the kiss of life is seen through a new lens.

But what really impresses is how independent this Snow White is. None of that Prince Charming malarkey: here, she’s the world’s only non-male matador, happy to face down charging animals as well as her step-mum.

After The Artist’s self-awareness, it’s nice to see a movie that plays its homage to silent cinema straight. That’s not to say it isn’t stylish. Put together with real flair and panache, Berger’s production has an enthusiasm missing from other recent fairy tale adaptations. Sequences blend together in hectic montages, a rush images driven by Alfonso de Vilallonga’s fabulous flamenco-tinged soundtrack. By keeping things streamlined and simple, Blancanieves does one thing Mirror and Snow White and the Huntsman couldn’t: stop you feeling bored. Well, that and make jokes about chickens. And who doesn’t like those?

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