Blancanieves

Blancanieves is a silent, black and white film, directed by Pablo Berger in 2012. It is a spanish film although since the only words in the film are ones you have to read anyway, it was very simple to watch. The film starts off strong, only a few minutes into the film we are thrust into an action sequence with a man "fighting" a bull. When he seems to be winning and doing well, the bull gets the better of him and sends him to the hospital, and coincidentally, his wife is sent to the same hospital, going into labor. The wife dies, the matador gets paralyzed and decides to marry a horrible "witch". Eventually the matadors' little girl comes home to him, only to be basically tortured by the witch her father married.

When the little girl, Carmencita, finds her father, they instantly connect. They have some good times together, laughing and playing, until the witch finds out. She murders Carmencitas father and eventually sets out to have her murdered, but the man she sent to murder the girl, or woman I guess, fails when she is revived by a dwarf. This dwarf, we learn, is part of a dwarf bull fighting group that travels around and gives people a comedic show of dwarves fighting bulls. When Carmancita, now named Snow White, senses one of the group is in danger, she goes out to save him and the crowd goes wild as she outsmarts the bull. She becomes famous and word of her reaches the witch that tried to have her killed. She kills the man who failed to murder Snow White and sets out to do it on her own. When the bull she switched out with the calf fails to hurt Snow White, the witch gives her a poisoned apple, and when Snow White finally eats it, she dies. The witch is killed by the bull she put in place of the calf, and Snow White becomes a money maker for the circus, but when one of the dwarves kisses her in her coffin, a single tear falls from her eye.

This film was fantastic. It was refreshing to find a black and white silent film that wasn't a comedy and was actually bearable. I loved how it seemed to have been shot back in the 20's, but the camera shots were so modern and beautiful. The acting was flawless, the woman who played Snow White played it very well. Not only did she do a great job with the acting, but she did a great job doing the bullfighting. She really did look like a bull fighter, and you don't see that much from women. Other than the acting and the awesome cinematography, the music was wonderful as well. It was common silent film music, but with an added flair, something I can't really explain, but it was perfect.

Gender In Zero Dark Thirty

War films have always been a part of the American culture. From the beginning of film history we have had a number of notable war films ranging from romantic to even horror. The vast majority of them are long, maybe even boring in parts, but they all have some sort of objective and all of them show shootouts and battles. Most of these films were directed by men. It seems right that men would direct films such as these since the nature of them are more "manly". The film Zero Dark Thirty, however, was perhaps just as brutal and "manly" and is directed by a woman, Kathryn Bigelow.

Kathryn Bigelow has been around for a while, but only recently hit the big leagues with her film The Hurt Locker (2008). This is another war film that stunned the world and won her an Oscar for the best film of the year, and for best director, which was the first time a woman had won that award. A few years later Bigelow decided to quickly film a movie on the killing of Osama Bin Laden. She got the film out quickly after the event occurred, leaving people baffled and curious as to where she got the information. It was put together fast and surprisingly accurate, and again Bigelow was up for an oscar for best film but was not chosen for the win this time.

Zero Dark Thirty follows a woman who is put on the case of finding Bin Laden in 2003. She is a rock solid person who only breaks a few times, even after viewing and initiating some of the torturing going on. She soon becomes obsessed with finding and killing Bin Laden and will let nothing get in the way of her mission. This begs the question, is this Bigelow's attempt to have feminism in the film? Even when she is being denied certain things the main character eventually gets what she wants, she doesn't let the men tell her she couldn't do something.

This makes me wonder, would this movie have been the same if it was directed by a man? Would the lead woman have had so much power, so much intensity, so much heart? I think no. I think a man would have focused more on the mission at hand, more on the attack of the home that Bin Laden was hiding in. The lead may have still been the woman, but I don't think the focus would have been on her.

The Devil's Backbone

The Devil's Backbone, by Guillermo Del Toro, is a fascinating film that could be categorized into many different genres. I have seen speculation that it is Horror, Gothic Horror, Drama, Fable, and even more. It is a film of many different feelings and styles, a film that could only have been made by Guillermo Del Toro. Del Toro is popular for his dark fantasy type movies such as his highly popular Pan's Labyrinth which follows a girl that is connecting the real world with a fantasy world. This is a dark movie, and like The Devil's Backbone, it could be thought of as many genres.

I do think that one could make a strong case for any of these genres for his film. I think that most people would argue that this film is a Horror film because of its dark attitude, bleak storyline, and jumpy scenes, but there are so many elements that make this movie seem like something more than just a horror film. It has an element of adventure, something of an epic tale of revenge. And although not made abundantly clear in the movie, I think this film is based on the very book that Carlos is reading, "The Count of Monte Cristo".

"The Count of Monte Cristo" is based on a man who is wrongfully imprisoned (Carlos?) and escapes the jail they put him in. He comes back to exact his revenge (Carlos and Santi?) and in doing so makes bad things happen, not only to the bad people, but to some good people as well (the blowing up of the kitchen?). So I actually believe this is a fable, a legend of sorts of the boy who got his revenge on the man who kept him imprisioned, and the boy who got his revenge on the man who killed him. And just as the bomb in the town is dead, but it's heart is still beating, the dead people in this town live as ghosts, haunting the town forever.