At the dawn of the Modern Age, as oral traditions faded against bright hopes for the future, the Brothers Grimm went exploring down the dark folkways of Central Europe. They collected stories that had been handed down for a millennium before they were forgotten. The Brothers Grimm weren’t the authors but the editors of the “fairytales” associated with their name—and there was nothing “Disney” about them. The happy endings were hard-won victories over a predatory world where malign forces could be beaten by pluck and ingenuity.
One of the most enduring of the Grimms’ fairy tales has been adapted by writer-director Oz Perkins as Gretel & Hansel. The name reversal is only the beginning of the reinvention. In the story book, Hansel takes the lead—at least in the opening pages—but in the film, he’s the hapless kid brother tagging alongside his big sister. Gretel (Sophia Lillis) is the protagonist, a determined young woman whose objective is survival in “the big bad world,” a phrase repeated several times in the screenplay. The siblings’ father is gone, and their mother has succumbed to madness. They have no family aside from each other.
The matter-of-factness of even the most disturbing passages in the Brothers Grimm gives way to full immersion in the inky blackness of evil. If Hansel still maintains a precarious childhood innocence, Gretel has already seen much of what the world dishes out to the unfortunate. Her suspicions are immediately raised by the kindly veneer of the aged witch (Alice Krige) with her table laden with delicious food and her pair of warm, clean beds. “Beware of those who offer gifts,” Gretel was once told. “Nothing is ever given without something taken away.”
Gretel & Hansel explores the metaphysics of evil as the witch plays the role of Gretel’s mentor. According to the witch, freedom comes from shrugging off all attachments—to people and values—and power as well. Human reason is a frail rod for holding up the mysterious multiplicity of reality. “Think less, my pretty, and know more,” the witch counsels.
Perkins’ lushly autumnal cinematography establishes the tone. The forest is carpeted with dry leaves that crack like bones underfoot. Dark silhouettes loom sentinel-like amidst the thickets of shivering trees. Lurid lights glow in the darkness. And the steeply pitched, oddly angled witch’s house could have been plucked from a century-old German Expressionist film.
Gretel & Hansel isn’t for the fainthearted, but neither is Hansel and Gretel when read closely. The screenplay is packed with the Grimms’ allusions to cruelty triggered by starvation, feckless and predatory adults and a “big bad world” where beauty is steeled by horror and injustice is inevitable but can be overcome.
