Cannes Review: “Tale of Tales”

One has to admire Matteo Garrone’s Tale of Tales for its sheer audacity. It’s an ambitious attempt to bring the fairy tales of Giambattista Basile to life; stories which are among the oldest fairy tales on record, dating back to 1634. The earnestness that drives the film is its foremost quality. Without winks to the audience, Tale of Tales unapologetically honors the spirit of these dark fables, and may be among cinema’s most accurate and sincere efforts at translating this beloved ancient form through filmmaking (Pan’s Labyrinth comes to mind as a kindred contemporary work). Still, Garrone has his work cut out for him insofar as managing these broad, bold tones, and assembling a small handful of tales into a coherent whole.

The film starts off with the story of a Queen (Salma Hayek) unable to get pregnant, who sends her husband off to fight a sea monster in order to steal its heart, which then needs to be cooked by a virgin, that she will than have to eat, which will allow her to conceive immaculately. The outlandish material comes naturally to the director, who has always had a penchant for blending the real and the fantastical. But the matter-of-factness of its delivery, and some awkward performances (whether this is Garrone’s first film in English has anything to do with that, I can’t say) from consistent talents like John C. Reilly and Vincent Cassel makes the imaginary a tough pill to swallow. Aiding the proceedings are clever effects, many of which are practical and bring a physical reality to the unearthly creatures that populate Tales. The film moves swiftly into another story, and then another, bouncing back and forth in a structure of diminishing returns. Nothing quite adds up, and the formal approach to blending multiple stories comes off as arbitrary, and often clumsy.

There is a thematic link to the stories Garrone has decided to adapt, each centering on similar human follies—often darkly and specifically focused on deceptive appearances, primal desire, and the ethical blindness of sexuality. Characters selfishly pursue their wants, without paying mind to consequences or the best interests of others. Nothing is more awful than saggy or deformed flesh, and nothing more desirable than the glow of nubile skin. In one story, a foolish King marries off his daughter to an ogre; in another a King discovers that the woman he slept with the previous night is hideous and has her executed—only for her to return, having mysteriously become young and beautiful. The film wants to effortlessly switch from funny to tragic to horrific, but Garrone only seems intermittently adept to do so.

The film wouldn’t be possible without its lavish production value, but at the same time there’s an unblemished glossiness that undermines the material’s grim(m) potential. Tale of Tales evokes the vibrancy and unabashed indulgence of late Fellini, but without the fluent poetics to make the film feel intricately woven instead of crudely patched together. In the end, no one seems quite as convinced as Garrone himself, who naively and confidently directs this flat and feeble fantasy.

Two stars out of four.