I’m going to have trouble talking about this film (actually talking, verbally, I mean, not writing about it), because I can’t pronounce the title properly. It’s Spanish for “Snow White.” Maybe I’ll just call it “Snow White,” okay? Okay. So anyway, the movie is an adaptation of the Snow White story, transplanted into 1920’s Spain, and in particular, into the world of matadors. It was the “Golden Age of Bullfighting,” the director said in the Q & A.
The fairy tale reference is both a benefit and a detriment to the film, in my opinion. While it does add an other-worldly quality to the characters (especially the bullfighting dwarves), some elements felt like they were shoehorned in, like the poison apple, and the eternal slumber. I thought the story was strong enough to stand on its own without having to hang it on the framework of an existing fairy tale.
Rating: 7/10
There’s something a bit cheesy about the whole vampire thing, and how they’re supposed to be all mysterious and ethereal and romantic. Byzantium has that cheesiness, especially during the flashback scenes, which tell the origin story of the two main vampire characters. The Victoria-era costumes and sets are well-produced, but they’re, you know, cheesy. I think it might have bothered me more if I hadn’t recently been watching a lot of similarly historical scenes done with a lower budget on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel (lower budget = more cheesy).
Stylistically and visually, I enjoyed the film, but I had some problems with the narrative. The aforementioned flashbacks are interspersed throughout the film, and the origin story arc is supposed to parallel the modern-day storyline. But about halfway through, I had already pieced together the mechanisms of how the characters became vampires, and after that, I was just waiting for what I already knew would happen to play out. As a result, I thought the flashbacks were starting to get in the way of the present narrative, and slowed down what is already a deliberately-paced movie.
Rating: 6/10
Speaking of cheesy, the 80’s were. Cheesy. Specifically, the media output of the 80’s (e.g. TV commercials, movies, etc.), when watched today, can often evoke cringes and bursts of awkward laughter.
The subject matter of No could have made for a very dark film—it follows a group of advertisers as they create TV commercials encouraging voters to vote against the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile’s 1988 referendum—but the fact that the commercials they create are 80’s commercials adds a lot of humour. There is a real danger involved (any election organized by a dictatorship is going to be fraught with corruption and threats) but when the anti-Pinochet “No” advertisers express their incendiary political ideas of freedom and democracy through commercials featuring dancers dressed in Day-Glo Spandex leotards, backed by synth-pop beats, it’s hard not to laugh at the contrast. The filmmakers behind No have perfectly achieved a balance between humour and solemnity.
Rating: 8/10
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