I have found this version to be carefully crafted and relatively appealing, though the characters were unlikable, beginning with the kids and their pets, and so perhaps it's not a cartoon to elicit exalted admiration, but just a bit of amusement for a cool evening; anyway, it has the mandatory blandness one would expect. For a moment, I thought of discussing European folktales instead of discussing this flick; but why not discuss them both, and give everybody a good time here? I am a folklorist by training, a movie buff by vocation, so take the joyride!
This 'Hänsel and Gretel' is a puppet show, which only adds to the delight and supplies the necessary merriment to be found even in such a dreadful succession of events. The German Romantic imagination was immoderate and wild (which is why some of us like it so much, enjoy it immoderately, for which I, beginning at age 19, can testify); but then again so were the folktales, the genuine folklore of the nations—immoderate, disturbing and lurid. Such is the narrative folklore—lurid, licentious, obscene, subversive, debauched and puzzling. And, hand in hand with Hänsel and Gretel, we step into some of its most lurid and disturbing territory. Of course a kids' movie isn't willing or ready to deal with such stuff. As an aside, the German Romanticism was a huge attempt at recovering the genuine feel of these folktales; an attempt stifled by the bourgeois 19th century's pedagogical obtuseness and inconceivably harmful hypocrisy. In the center of 'Hänsel and Gretel' reigns a particularly disturbing symbol: the hag, the old—woman who 'eats children'. This is even more shameless than the giant met by Jack of the beanstalk fame. So these European peasants liked their tales spicy and weird! They were into some sick stuff!
Two children are chased away from home by their angry mother, chased and sent away to go looking for strawberries and provide for the family's meal; they are led astray partly by their own carelessness and negligence, as the witch seems quite moderate in using her powers and spells, as if she cunningly misguides but doesn't force one out of his way, she doesn't really kidnap the children but more or less fools or deludes them, lures them away, and these magical worlds have their own behavioral codes. The suggestions of H & G (pedophilia, sadism, cannibalism) are obvious enough. Now you see how kids raised with suchlike tales would grow up to write or read voraciously Gothic novels. HANSEL AND GRETEL is a very Gothic fairytale, very violent, cruel and disturbing, the way these German folktales knew how to be, very engrossing and taut, about, among others, the appalling terrors of the Teutonic forest, and one is reminded of the Apostle of Germany (S. Boniface, I think) taking down a tree, cutting it himself; the American genre cinema also has the notion of the forest, the wood being a dreadful place, and there are countless flicks about the monsters lurking in these environments. Most of the kids' adaptations aren't really ready to deal with the truly Gothic nature, unrelentingly disturbing, of the story in H & G, trading it for the commercially safer cuteness. So, can H & G be made into a kids' movie? There are literally lots of screen adaptations, including an erotic version, and some were made by giants like Lotte Reiniger and Harryhausen, so that the cinema archivist will find joy in this chapter.
We see that our ancestors were very intent on scaring the children with the fairy tales they told them. Nowadays vampire—sagas seem pretty bland by comparison.
This 'Hänsel and Gretel' is a puppet show, which only adds to the delight and supplies the necessary merriment to be found even in such a dreadful succession of events. The German Romantic imagination was immoderate and wild (which is why some of us like it so much, enjoy it immoderately, for which I, beginning at age 19, can testify); but then again so were the folktales, the genuine folklore of the nations—immoderate, disturbing and lurid. Such is the narrative folklore—lurid, licentious, obscene, subversive, debauched and puzzling. And, hand in hand with Hänsel and Gretel, we step into some of its most lurid and disturbing territory. Of course a kids' movie isn't willing or ready to deal with such stuff. As an aside, the German Romanticism was a huge attempt at recovering the genuine feel of these folktales; an attempt stifled by the bourgeois 19th century's pedagogical obtuseness and inconceivably harmful hypocrisy. In the center of 'Hänsel and Gretel' reigns a particularly disturbing symbol: the hag, the old—woman who 'eats children'. This is even more shameless than the giant met by Jack of the beanstalk fame. So these European peasants liked their tales spicy and weird! They were into some sick stuff!
Two children are chased away from home by their angry mother, chased and sent away to go looking for strawberries and provide for the family's meal; they are led astray partly by their own carelessness and negligence, as the witch seems quite moderate in using her powers and spells, as if she cunningly misguides but doesn't force one out of his way, she doesn't really kidnap the children but more or less fools or deludes them, lures them away, and these magical worlds have their own behavioral codes. The suggestions of H & G (pedophilia, sadism, cannibalism) are obvious enough. Now you see how kids raised with suchlike tales would grow up to write or read voraciously Gothic novels. HANSEL AND GRETEL is a very Gothic fairytale, very violent, cruel and disturbing, the way these German folktales knew how to be, very engrossing and taut, about, among others, the appalling terrors of the Teutonic forest, and one is reminded of the Apostle of Germany (S. Boniface, I think) taking down a tree, cutting it himself; the American genre cinema also has the notion of the forest, the wood being a dreadful place, and there are countless flicks about the monsters lurking in these environments. Most of the kids' adaptations aren't really ready to deal with the truly Gothic nature, unrelentingly disturbing, of the story in H & G, trading it for the commercially safer cuteness. So, can H & G be made into a kids' movie? There are literally lots of screen adaptations, including an erotic version, and some were made by giants like Lotte Reiniger and Harryhausen, so that the cinema archivist will find joy in this chapter.
We see that our ancestors were very intent on scaring the children with the fairy tales they told them. Nowadays vampire—sagas seem pretty bland by comparison.