Day 11 @ MSPIFF 2016: 'Tale Of Tales' Reviewed
Just watch the trailer above. That'll tell you all you need to know.
Well, maybe not. But it will most importantly tell you that Tale of Tales, directed by Gomorrah helmer Matteo Garrone, strains at the seams to become the next art house cult classic-cum-midnight movie. It's art directed to the hilt. It tosses together its cast like some sort of incongruous salad made from sweetbreads, crumbled ginger snaps and light bulbs. It merges the grotesque with the childlike in a way that would seem to have been inspired in part by Dušan Makavejev or maybe Jan Švankmajer. (It's a very eastern European-feeling movie.) And it's all to eager to please.
The movie spins three separate fairy tales, all a bit touched in the head. Perhaps none impresses quite to the same extent as the one that (with plenty of plot machinations) provides the spectacle of Salma Hayek eating the heart of a sea creature in order to get pregnant.
Unless it's the one that sees Toby Jones providing bloody suckle to a ...
No, I won't go there. In fact, I won't go anywhere. Tale of Tales probably works best in letting its delicate obscenities wash over you like a bracing shot of cold sludge. That's both its strength and, I expect, it's weakness.
Tale of Tales is playing at 7 p.m. at St. Anthony Main Theater.
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Other Highlights For Friday, April 15
Voices from Chernobyl (Pol Cruchten, Luxembourg/Austria) Nope, it's not a quirky comedy about a motley band of down-and-outers learning the value of community through the healing power of swing choir. It's actually a lot darker than that. I guess having "Chernobyl" in the title should've been the tipoff. (St. Anthony Main Theater; 10:45 a.m.)
Robert Bly: A Thousand Years of Joy (Haydn Reiss, U.S.) I can't hear or read Robert Bly's name and not flash back on MST3K's Crow watching Eegah and greeting the first appearance of Richard Kiel's caveman with the tag, "Which way to Robert Bly workshop?" Nonetheless, fans of the poet or Minnesota literature in general are encouraged to check this doc out. (St. Anthony Main Theater; 6:10 p.m.)
Serial Killer 1 (Frédéric Tellier, France) It's French! It's feminine! It'll help ya grab one of those rotten, stinkin' men! Quelle Difference! (St. Anthony Main Theater; 9:50 p.m.)
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For the festival schedule, and a complete listing of all the movies being shown, click here. Ticket information is available here.
Throughout the entirety of the 2016 Minneapolis-St. Paul International Film Festival, WCCO.com will be spotlighting one notable movie each day, along with other notable screenings. To see WCCO.com's complete coverage on the MSPIFF, click here.
