Review: Tale of Tales

Tale of Tales (15)

Italy/France/UK 2015 134 mins  Dir: Matteo Garrone  Cast: Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, Toby Jones, John C. Reilly, Shirley Henderson, Hayley Carmichael, Bebe Cave

Ever wanted to see Queen Salma Hayek gorging on the enormous bloody heart of a slain beast? Or an old hag taping up her saggy tits to trick lothario monarch Vincent Cassel into thinking she’s a hot young beauty in the gloom of the royal bedchamber? Or King Toby Jones neglecting his daughter in order to spend more time with a cooing, big-eyed flea that he’s nurtured to the size of a pig? Matteo Garrone’s Neapolitan fairytale triptych delivers all this and more. Drawn from Giambattista Basile’s little-known 17th century yarns, these are at once strange and familiar, conjuring up fresh twisted fables in a handsomely staged Grimm world of clifftop castles, beautiful princesses, hideous ogres and magical pacts with more than the occasional cruel sting in the tail.

In The Enchanted Doe, the court of King John C. Reilly and Queen Salma Hayek – has there ever been a more unlikely regal screen pairing than that? – is a deeply unhappy one as a result of her inability to conceive a child. Enter an etiolated wandering necromancer, who proposes a solution with small print attached – which, needless to say, is ignored. All she has to do is scoff the heart of a freshly slaughtered sea monster that’s been cooked by a virgin. So King John sets out in his Jules Verne-vintage diving suit to harvest the beating organ from a hapless reptilian leviathan, receiving mortal wounds in the process. As predicted, Her Maj falls immediately pregnant upon gorging on her meaty feast. So too does the virgin…

The appealingly titled The Flayed Old Lady introduces Vincent Cassel as the horny ruler of a neighbouring kingdom whose sexual enthusiasm and stamina would bring a blush to the cheeks of Fellini. Hearing the beautiful singing voice of a peasant, he becomes obsessed with seducing her. When she coyly resists his charms from behind a locked door, his ardour is redoubled. What he doesn’t suspect is that she’s a crone (Hayley Carmichael). But soon the prospect of exchanging her hovel for a castle becomes too tempting and, against the advice of her nervous sister (a game Shirley Henderson), she agrees to slip between the royal sheets – but only in total darkness, for “my heart could not withstand you seeing me naked”.

The most surreal yarn is The Flea, with Toby Jones as a rather ineffectual king whose headstrong, precocious teenage daughter Bebe Cave is growing impatient. For her, “someday” is not an acceptable answer to the question of when her prince will come. But King Toby has become enchanted by a tiny flea, which he feeds on his own blood in his private quarters until it has grown to vast proportions. When his parasitic pal eventually perishes, it inspires an imaginative solution to young Bebe’s romantic yearning, with the mandatory unexpected payoff.

Something of a left turn for Matteo Garrone, who’s best known for the multi-stranded verite crime yarn Gomorrah, his first English language feature is a deliciously macabre, refreshingly CGI-lite folk tale compendium benefiting from handsome cinematography and costume/set design, perverse sexual undertones and no attempt at modish contemporary resonance. The performances are a tad variable, with Cassel’s ripe turn bringing to mind Monty Python’s French knights while young Bebe Cave steals it as the princess who finds herself matched with a most inappropriate suitor. Alas, the ending is a rather feeble attempt to tie together the three yarns, which might have worked better as a portmanteau instead of being interwoven, and the climax of the Salma Hayek one could have packed more of a punch. But these are fairly minor quibbles about this sumptuous cult-in-the-making treat that sits more comfortably alongside Valerie and Her Week of Wonders and Immoral Tales than such wretched Hollywood confections as The Huntsman: Winter’s War or Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters and is certain to make Terry Gilliam green with envy.