Gretel & Hansel (2020)
Directed by Osgood Perkins
A long time ago in a distant fairy tale countryside, a young girl leads her little brother into a dark wood in desperate search of food and work, only to stumble upon a nexus of terrifying evil.
9 connections found
View:
9 films that influenced Gretel & Hansel
What critics say influenced Gretel & Hansel
Far from the naturalism and historical accuracy of such folk-horrors as Robert Eggers’ The Witch, the production design recalls the offputtingly jagged edges of German expressionism, and the striking costumes owe to the surrealism of Jodorowsky and beyond.
That said, while there is a familiar narrative at play, the film has a good amount of arthouse sensibilities that bring to mind films like The Witch .
The film’s visual palette channels Robert Eggers (The Witch) and Alejandro Jodorowsky (The Holy Mountain).
Here, the filmmaker remixes the iconic fairy tale into a coming-of-age story of female empowerment and societal constraints on gender and sexuality, which makes the comparisons to Eggers‘ The Witch practically inevitable.
Wandering in the autumnal twilight between the hyper-real anachronism of Tarsem Singh ( The Cell , The Fall , Immortals ) and the grimy, hand-hewn period realism of Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015), Gretel & Hansel is a veritable feast for the senses.
The trailers suggest high concept with a small cast, looking similar in theme to A24’s The Witch but on a reduced scale while decidedly more “Grimm” in origin.
Additionally, Gretel & Hansel takes inspiration from famed Chilean director Alexandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain , using imagery that fans of that film will notice right away, most specifically in some of the Witch’s costuming.
The film’s visual palette channels Robert Eggers (The Witch) and Alejandro Jodorowsky (The Holy Mountain).
Cinematographer Galo Olivares and production designer Jeremy Reed – the latter a veteran of Perkins’ Pretty Thing (2016) – deliver a pageant of darkly mesmerizing visuals, drawing freely from German Expressionism, Hammer horror films, and the surreal visuals of transgressive 1970s European art cinema like The Devils (1971), The Holy Mountain (1973), and Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975).
Perkins has said that the design of the film was inspired by Alejandro Jodorowsky’s The Holy Mountain , but there are glimpses of giallo in the film too.
Cinematographer Galo Olivares and production designer Jeremy Reed – the latter a veteran of Perkins’ Pretty Thing (2016) – deliver a pageant of darkly mesmerizing visuals, drawing freely from German Expressionism, Hammer horror films, and the surreal visuals of transgressive 1970s European art cinema like The Devils (1971), The Holy Mountain (1973), and Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom (1975).
A scene involving the eating of magic mushrooms evokes Alice in Wonderland, but Tim Burton's de-weirded Alice this is not.
Advertisement
Wandering in the autumnal twilight between the hyper-real anachronism of Tarsem Singh ( The Cell , The Fall , Immortals ) and the grimy, hand-hewn period realism of Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015), Gretel & Hansel is a veritable feast for the senses.
Disciples of midnight-movie maestro Panos Cosmatos (who charted new frontiers of psychedelia with Beyond the Black Rainbow and Mandy ) will be tipped off by the ’70s font and kaleidoscopic design of Gretel & Hansel ’s title card.
Comparisons to recent genre favorites like The Witch and Mandy are likely inevitable.
Wandering in the autumnal twilight between the hyper-real anachronism of Tarsem Singh ( The Cell , The Fall , Immortals ) and the grimy, hand-hewn period realism of Robert Eggers’ The Witch (2015), Gretel & Hansel is a veritable feast for the senses.
The cottage is also home to a creepy old crone played by Alice Kruge, whose career includes a turn as the Borg queen in Star Trek: First Contact.
And sure, she's basically just playing the Borg Queen from Star Trek: First Contact again, but that was a very good performance, and it translates into a folkloric wicked witch with surprisingly little lost.
Lillis’ low-key performance might be perfectly in tune with Perkins’ vision of craziness presented ever so matter of factly but its lack of variety means Krige, a horror/sci-fi veteran (the Borg Queen of “Star Trek: First Contact,” “Ghost Story”), must do all the heavy lifting.
Lillis, who was so delightful and spunky in the two It films, warms up her scenes with her character's younger brother, and Krige (the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact ) has a slithery quality that makes her witch somehow hypnotic.
In fact, she’s a veteran character actress whose 100+ roles almost certainly include things you’ve seen; she’s probably best known as the Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact, though genre fans will remember her truly remarkable starring role in 1981’s Ghost Story.
Gretel and Hansel, on the verge of collapse, are grateful to find Holda (STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT’s Alice Krige) and her domicile and so are we.
Advertisement
Much as in The Witch – or in Eggers’ salty horror-comedy The Lighthouse (2019) – it takes a scene or two to modulate one’s ear to the film’s idiosyncratic linguistic style.