Wednesday 13 March 2013

Fairytales Today

I recently bought and read The Rose and the Beast: Fairy Tales Retold by Francesca Lia Block, a mixed batch this one definitely isn't for kids. My favourites were the retelling of Snow White- Snow and of Bluebeard- Bones. Also featured are Tiny, a retelling of Thumbelina, Glass, which is Cinderella, Charm, which is a disturbing version of Sleeping Beauty, Wolf, which is Red Riding Hood, Rose, which is the rarely told Snow White and Rose Red, Beast, obviously Beauty and the Beast, and finally Ice, which takes on Hans Christian Anderson's The Snow Queen.

Bringing in elements of rape, paedophilia, murder, and cannibalism as well as dealing with vanity, growing up, jealousy and love it gives modern versions of the fairytales whilst trying to go back to their darker roots, lately a common and popular theme in films and fiction. It's not a light hearted read though it's certainly a quick one, it can become quite depressing with the heavy and dark elements in these short stories. Still, it gives interesting takes on the stories, though far from unique. For those craving dark retellings it's up there with Tanith Lee's Red As Blood and Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, following in the same vein.


Along with reading this, I also finished White As Snow by Tanith Lee, rewatched Snow White and The Huntsman, and watched Hansel and Gretel. The latter was interesting, mixing medieval, fantasy and a little steampunk it was a short, light hearted, gruesome flick presenting Hansel and Gretel as gun wielding, grown up witch hunters. Here we have a Hansel who suffers from diabetes thanks to eating too much candy in the gingerbread house, and a Gretel obssessed with finding out why their parents abandoned them, rounding it off with tag along Ben, a great admirer of the witch hunters, love interest Mina and the key villain, head witch Muriel. It's not to be taken too seriously and relies on numerous fight sequences to carry it through, it's liberal with the language, and goes for a simple plot with a simple twist.

It goes down the road of being a dark telling of the fairytale and with a 15 rating it's definitely not for kids, complete with cursing, gory sequences and nudity. If you're looking for any kind of historical accuracy, an in depth or serious plot, then it's not for you. It's fantasy plain and simple with steampunk gadgets and weapons, and tight, leather clothes mixing guns, crossbows and bombs with magic. It has enough elements to keep it fantasy, staying true to the original fairytale with child abandonment, a gingerbread house and a creepy witch who ends up in the oven, and later introduces several more witches and even a troll. It's full of action and there is rarely a dull moment, sadly it's let down by pointless love interest Mina, there is virtually no chemistry between her and Hansel and it's not hard to guess her secret, one-dimensional villains in the form of village guards that feel threatened by the siblings, a lack of history for Ben, and an overly simple, easy to predict plot. Still, it's worth at least one watch and is something different for the fairytale field.


It's nice to see Hansel and Gretel get a turn at an adaptation, the last I seen of them was in one episode of Once Upon A Time, after that they were swiftly forgotten. I have to say, I did prefer the witch in that one, blind and sufficiently creepy.


White as Snow


White as Snow is an adult gothic retelling of Snow White by Tanith Lee, drawing inspiration from the Greek myth of Persephone and Hades. Full of vivid description, it gives a large amount of attention to the wicked queen Arpazia, portraying her as a victim driven mad by her ill life as a rape victim and reluctant wife to King Draco who conquered her land and took her as his prize. Arpazia is an outsider from the start, Draco's people regard her as a witch, particularly unnerved by the mirror she keeps, a gift from Draco who took it from her father's palace. The only people Arpazia finds solace with are the pagans who worship the old gods in the wood, hoping to use the queen to influence their own purposes, they use the woodsman Klymeno (similar to Clymenus, another name for Hades) to seduce her.

Arpazia however has a fear of childbirth having giving birth to Draco's child Coira, known officially as Candacis, and immediately abandoned her, so when she falls pregnant with Klymeno's child she demands a way to be rid of it, Klymeno gives her a potion in exchange for her bringing Coira to the woods as a metaphorical sacrifice, from then on Coira starts to become drawn into the world of the woods, displaying her mother as the forest queen. After, Arpazia sees Klymeno no more but she sees her daughter displacing her, viewing her as someone who has stolen her youth. Her jealousy and madness grow and she commands one of the king's servants, a man who brings seven dwarves to the palace to entertain the prince by acting out the Seven Sins, to kidnap Coira and do as he pleases with her. He abducts Coira and takes her with him and his dwarves, learning that she is the princess he decides to kill her so he is not caught but the dwarves learn of his plot and kill him instead, thus freeing themselves.

However, the dwarves know they cannot get by without a master or mistress, so they compel Coira to be their mistress and go with them to the mines to work and live, having nothing to return to, Coira agrees to this. In the underworld of the mines Coira acts a house servant to the dwarves, keeping house and cooking for them, she also becomes lover to the dwarf Stormy, whose real name is Hephastion (like the lame Greek god, as he too is lame). The dwarves grow angry over this relationship and split, eventually Stormy leaves and Arpazia, now mad and wandering the world to escape being blamed for Coira's vanishing, finds Coira. She is crone like now and arrives bearing honeyed apples, some poisoned due to bees taking nectar from poppies, she reunites with Coira in a tragic and confusing moment, unsure if she wants to kill or love her.


Coira is poisoned by the apples and found seemingly dead by Prince Hadz, ruler of the mines, he suffered from headaches that were cured thanks to Coira's herbs. Prince Hadz falls for her beauty, has her placed in a coffin made from the shards of the mirror, which Arpazia had given to the dwarves' master in payment for kidnapping Coira, and he has Arpazia imprisoned. Prince Hadz however is no romantic prince however but an insane sadist and possibly Coira's half-brother. He defiles Coira's body and when she chokes up the apple, he has her released from the coffin and the shards of it turned into a gown for her. He makes her his queen, abusing her regularly until he decides to kill her mother.

Arpazia is hung, weighed down by heated metal shoes, she goes to Klymeno, who supposedly was slain by a boar, and Coira's grief draws Hadz' wrath upon her. Coira is spared only by Stormy's return and intervention, he earns Coira for himself but at a dark price, having to give Hadz himself briefly. Stormy and Coira leave, Coira pregnant and the father unknown.

I did enjoy this story to a point, the descriptions were beautiful and dark, Coira and Arpazia came to life easily and even the brief character of Klymeno was full of detail. I was annoyed that Hadz turned out to be a villain, it only enhances the common misunderstanding that Hadz was an evil god, when in fact he was not, and it undermines the role of the prince. The ending with Hadz' sadism was also a little too dark for me, but an interesting touch to see Snow resurrected by her prince and yet not saved by him, a little like the Basile version of Sleeping Beauty and her prince, in which the prince rapes her.


The comparisons between the original fairytale and the myth of Persephone and Hades are easy to spot and nice to see, perhaps it is why Hadz is so violent, as Hades was seen to have abducted Persephone rather than courted her. It was great to see Arpazia die with the heated shoes, as that was faithful to fairytale and rarely seen in tellings of Snow White now. It was interesting to also hear of Arpazia's childhood and history first, learning how she became an evil, envious witch queen. She does not simply envy Coira's beauty and youth, but rather sees it as her own youth and beauty stolen. The dwarves were brilliantly developed though their appearance compared to the length of the novel was brief, they are modelled on the Seven Sins, portraying them in a performance, most recently before the Prince. The obvious referencing to the Maiden, Mother, Crone was a nice touch too as Arpazia goes through all three states and the novel ends with Coira changing from a Maiden to a Mother.

White as Snow reminds me a lot of Snow White: A Tale of Terror, both are dark and bloody, with a queen who though evil, does merit some sympathy, and both have Snow coupling with a dwarf (or miner as it were) rather than the prince. They go back to the fairytale's roots as a darker story for adults rather than children and are not afraid to cross boundaries, bringing rape and child loss into the story. Snow White and the Huntsman shares some similarities too, both giving us a mad queen who seems to be imagining the voice of the mirror rather than really hearing it.

Snow White was obviously the princess of the year, now the fairytales are branching out and as well as Hansel and Gretel, and Jack the Giant Slayer, we're too expect a Beauty and the Beast movie (possibly two), The Little Mermaid movie and a live action Disney Cinderella one. The question is, how many of these are going to attempt to go back to their darker roots?

Friday 1 March 2013

Goldfinger

My boyfriend bought me all the James Bond films on blu-ray and I thought I would rewatch Goldfinger. Probably the most infamous of the Bond films, credited with setting many of the trends that would follow- Q's gadgets, a Bond girl killed by the villain, exotic locations, the car, Aston Martin DB5, the precredits sequence, and the Bond theme. Though From Russia with Love is touted as Sean Connery's favourite of the Bond films and it was the popularity of its novel counterpart with President Kennedy that launched Bond's fame, and Thunderball was the highest grossing Bond film, Goldfinger is still reputed as the one that created the template of Bond films and stood above them all.


In the film Bond must observe Auric Goldfinger and learn how he smuggles gold, as the plot thickens he discovers that Goldfinger has a plan to rob Fort Knox, dubbed Operation Grandslam. He plans to use pilots, led and trained by the infamous Pussy Galore, to douse Fort Knox with Delta 9 nerve gas so he can infiltrate Fort Knox. In reality, he does not plan to steal the gold there but instead to poison it with radiation, rendering it usless for the next 58 years and thus leading to the value of his own gold increasing, and giving the Chinese who is in alliance with an advantage over the Americans.

The film relies not just on Bond's wits but also his charm as it becomes key for him to seduce Pussy Galore and win her to his side. It is she who switches the nerve gas to a harmless one, and alerts the government, telling them of Goldfinger's plan so the military can play along and catch Goldfinger in a trap.

Featuring infamous golden girl Jill Masterson (who wasn't actually the golden girl in the credits, that was Margaret Nolan who played the minor role of Dink), her ill-fated sister Tilly and memorable villainous sidekick Oddjob, this film had everything. Some people think it's aged with time, others think it's the best of the Bonds and that Pussy Galore is the best of the Bond girls.

In my opinion it's certainly one of the best and probably Connery's best, he's on top form as a charming Bond although he's a bumbling one too, he gets knocked out by Oddjob who then kills Jill, he also gets captured by him later after he kills Jill's sister Tilly, and he finds himself at the mercy of Pussy and Goldfinger. On the other hand he shows himself as more than capable of using his wit and charm to not only preserve his skin but to get the villain into revealing his plans and getting the villain's henchwoman to in fact turning coat and helping to save countless lives as well as Fort Knox's gold.


Pussy Galore is a more feminine henchwoman than Rosa Klebb, with more intelligence than Helga Brandt and more of a conscience than Fiona Volpe, unlike them she does not meet her end with Bond but instead succumbs to his charm and joins him. It seems the only way for a bad Bond girl to come alive is to side with Bond, those who best him only do it temporarily, although it's their own folly really as they all had a chance to kill him (Fiona could have had him shot in the hotel room, Elektra King had him restrained and could have easily killed him and Helga Brandt also had him restrained but chose to inexplicably abandon him on a plane instead).

Pussy has more spunk than most Bond girls she's no damsel but very much a tough, independent woman who is initially immune to Bond (in the novel she was infamously a lesbian) and even when she sides with him it's more out of guilt over killing people rather than simply becoming infatuated with Bond. She's sexy and amusing and it's a pity she took so long to make an appearance in the film and a pity more Bond girls didn't have her mix of appeal and doggedness.


Tilly Masterson had potential, entering as a beautiful, vengeful blonde with a gun she could have been on Melina Havelock's level but sadly she is just another victim, another woman for Bond to meet and fail to save. She does not die because of her association with Bond like Paris Carver, Andrea Anders, Solange, Strawberry Fields and Severine, but dies because of her own incompetence. She tries to shoot Goldfinger and nearly hits Bond drawing everyone's attention to her, she escapes from Goldfinger but not Bond, but her first fail is not enough to put her off avenging her sister. Tilly tries to go after Goldfinger again and trips the alarm with her gun nozzle, in part because Bond surprised her, she and Bond are discovered and she is killed by Oddjob's deadly hat.


Jill, easily the most memorable thanks to the iconic imagery, is barely in the film, we learn little about her. She is Goldfinger's assistant, there to help him win card games by spying on them and revealing his opponent's hands to him through a secret earpiece, she is also there to be seen with them though she assures Bond that that is it. She quite willingly hooks up with Bond and allows him to humiliate Goldfinger, in part because she has little love for him. Whether Jill was like Paris, Andrea and Severine and simply incapable of escaping her fate but willing to try in vain, or if she did not think Goldfinger's wrath would be so fatal we don't know. She sleeps with Bond and dies soon after, suffocated in gold paint.

Goldfinger himself is as good as Blofeld, he is imposing, powerful, mad and murderous. Though his goal makes little sense, he is a believable villain with money, henchmen and henchwomen at his disposable to see his goals come true. He makes it clear that he is no weak threat, having Jill and Tilly killed, and sparing Bond only out of caution. He uses Bond's presence to trick Bond's allies into thinking that he has things under control opposed to being a prisoner, but alas underestimates the agent's intelligence and his own henchwoman Pussy Galore's loyalty. He might have even been successful if Pussy's conscience had not got in the way.

Overall, one of the most iconic Bond films and the one to put it on the map and ensure its success for years to come, Goldfinger has everything. It's hard to spot any weak links, the tension and battle of words and wills between Goldfinger and Bond is invigorating, tense and completely believable. Goldfinger is no shadowy villain as Blofeld was for so long, he's very real and impressive, standing out more than so many other weak, forgettable villains. The girls are on top form, a nice mix of the expected damsels, lambs for slaughter and, best of all, sassy women worthy of being Bond's equal. The plot itself is not too over the top and not so believable as to bog one down by being boring, this is fiction after all and there's nothing wrong with some flair and style, sad that Die Another Day simply took it too far. Let's not forget that this Bond flick also has one of the best intro sequences with Bond coming out of the water in a wetsuit and taking it off to reveal a white tuxedo. Apparently this was actually based on a real occurrence!