The Brothers Grimm (film)
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| The Brothers Grimm | |
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| Directed by | Terry Gilliam |
| Produced by | Jonathan Gordon Chris McGurk |
| Written by | Ehren Kruger |
| Starring | Matt Damon Heath Ledger Jonathan Pryce Lena Headey Peter Stormare Monica Bellucci |
| Cinematography | Newton Thomas Sigel Nicola Pecorini |
| Distributed by | United States: Dimension Films Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Global: Summit Entertainment Buena Vista Home Entertainment |
| Release date(s) | August 26, 2005 |
| Running time | 118 min. |
| Language | English French German |
| Budget | $80,000,000 |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
The Brothers Grimm is a 2005 feature film directed by Terry Gilliam.
This film was supposed to be released in November 2004 in theaters, but it was delayed, with the new release date being August 26, 2005. The film was in the competition at the Venice Film Festival 2005.
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[edit] Plot
The film starts at the end of the 18th century and begins with a scene of Wilhelm and Jacob Grimm as children. Their sister is dying and Jacob has been sent to sell the cow in order to have money for a doctor. However, when Jacob returns, he innocently explains that he has traded the cow for "magic" beans. Will is furious with Jacob, and it is implied that their sister died as a result of his mistake.
The story jumps ahead fifteen years (into the early 19th century) with Will and Jake riding into a town in "French occupied Germany," to rid the town of a witch's ghost. However, after killing the "ghost", it is revealed that the Brothers Grimm are actually con artists, setting up fake demons and monsters to trick gullible townspeople.
Afterwards, as they are celebrating at an inn, Cavaldi, an Italian torturer, captures them and takes them to the French General, Delatombe. Delatombe forces them to solve a mystery: the girls of the small village of Marbaden are going missing. The Brothers are charged with finding out who is responsible, under the assumption that it is the work of con artists like themselves. However, they soon discover that it is in fact the work of a real supernatural force: the beautiful yet horribly dangerous Queen who is stealing young girls for their youth.
Long ago, the Queen tormented the villagers' ancestors to possess their magic, including a spell for eternal life. Only a year later, her kingdom was destroyed by the plague. She built a high tower to avoid it, as her husband and everyone below her perished--unfortunately, she did not understand that plague was carried by wind. She was extraordinarily vain and soon began to rot away as she decayed over the years. Her spell granted her immortal life, but not the youth and beauty to go along with it. Her youthful appearance now only exists in her mirror, the source of her life, as an illusion and nothing more.
The queen is working an enchantment to regain her beauty with the aid of her shape-shifting huntsman with a magic ax (which can operate like a boomerang), crow familiars, and various creatures in the forest. She needs to drink the blood of twelve young women. The Brothers Grimm, with the help of Angelika, a knowing huntress from the village, and Cavaldi, must stop her.
After a few problems: another missing kid (kidnapped by a horse) and both of Cavaldi's assistants Dax and Letorc get killed by the trees, Cavaldi takes the Grimms and Angelika back to Delatombe. Because they have failed, Cavaldi may kill both of the Grimms. After falsly convincing Delatombe that the magic in the forest is actually caused by German rebels, he sends them back. This time also Hidlick and Bunst come along (the Grimm's partners who are in control of playing a monster and the special effects that go with their hoaxes). Cavaldi sends the four companions to the forest and he stays behind with Angelika. They try to get inside the tower with a catapult which doesn't seem to work very well. When Hidlick and Bunt see the trees moving they flee the forest and go back to town. In the meanwhile another young girl named Sasha is captured despite Angelika and Cavaldi's efforts to save her. Hidlick and Bunt are in time to see it happen and decide to go away as far as possible, only to be captured and beheaded by the French soldiers led by Delatombe.
In the forest, Jake succeeds in getting into the tower and notices that there are twelve tombs from up there. When Sasha's body comes up from a well, the wolf man is also there. Will hides and the huntsman takes the body and puts it in one of the tombs. Will fights the huntsman and the queen tries to influence Jacob. Both succeed in escaping the place with Sasha. They explain to the town what is going on and that the queen needs only one more person to complete the spell. Then Delatombe arrives with the heads of Hidlick and Bunt. The Grimms are captured and about to be burned by the French. Cavaldi says he's sorry and returns to Delatombe. In the meanwhile the French have started to burn the forest. Jake and Will are saved by Angelika.
The woodsman turns out to be Angelika's father, who was saved by the Queen from a frozen death and pierced in the heart with a spike or thorn which keeps him under her spell. Eventually, the Brothers reach the Queen's tower but the spell to return her youth is nearly complete because Angelika has become the twelfth victim.
Delatombe notices that the Grimms have escaped and goes after them with Cavaldi and his servant. When Cavaldi refuses to kill the Grimms, Delatombe shoots him. Jake kills the servant with the magic axe and Delatombe is impaled by Will. He dies saying that all he wanted was a little bit of order. Then Jake goes into the tower.
The Brothers Grimm attack the Queen but she turns their weapons on each other. Under control of the spell, Jacob tries to kill Will and the Mirror Queen turns young again. The Queen decides to revive the fallen Grimm and make him her new "prince" by taking the thorn from the woodsman's heart and embedding it in Will's. The woodsman falls down wounded and the queen tries to get Will under her control. Jake finally manages to shatter the enchanted mirror inside the tower, causing the Queen to shatter as well. The woodsman gets up and destroys the last of the mirror by jumping out of the window, while Will falls out as well. Outside Cavaldi seems to be alive (he wore the Grimm's armor) and bends over Will's body. When Will dies Cavaldi uses an old curse on the witch and the tower falls apart.
Cavaldi takes Jacob to Will's body, Cavaldi suddenly remembers a story from his childhood and says Jake has to kiss Angelika to wake her up. Jake awakens Angelika and everyone else who had been enchanted (including Will) by giving her the kiss of true love. With the menace gone and their daughters returned to them, the villagers of Marbaden celebrate and give their heart-felt thanks to the Brothers Grimm. Cavaldi stays in the village and joins the villagers for the feast. The Grimms have decided to pursue a new vocation. At this point, the words "And they all lived happily ever after..." appear on screen. However, a crow flies over this cheerful scene with a surviving fragment of the Mirror Queen's terrified, staring eye in its beak and the message on screen changes to "...well, maybe not."
[edit] Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Matt Damon | Wilhelm "Will" Grimm |
| Heath Ledger | Jacob "Jake" Grimm |
| Peter Stormare | Mercurio Cavaldi |
| Lena Headey | Angelika |
| Jonathan Pryce | General Vavarin Delatombe |
| Monica Bellucci | The Mirror Queen |
| Laura Greenwood | Sasha |
| Mackenzie Crook | Hidlick |
| Richard Ridings | Bunst |
[edit] Release
Despite initial fears by some critics and film fans (based on the fact that the release date was rescheduled several times), The Brothers Grimm was released 26 August 2005 after final arrangements made by the Weinstein brothers and the Walt Disney Company concerning how to divide the catalog of Miramax films currently in production. MGM and Miramax's Dimension Films produced the film, MGM has international rights and Dimension/Miramax has U.S. distribution rights. MGM backed out of its deal to co-distribute in the US, which also contributed to the delay in its release.
Dreams and Nightmares: The Brothers Grimm and other Cautionary Tales of Hollywood by Bob McCabe was released on 7 November 2005 by HarperCollins, documenting the challenges and problems that Gilliam and his crew faced while making the movie.
In an audio commentary on the DVD, Gilliam forthrightly says he did not think much of The Brothers Grimm script but decided to direct it because he had no projects of his own going on at the time. In interviews included on the DVD edition of Tideland Gilliam says agreeing to direct The Brothers Grimm helped him to line up financing for Tideland. The latter film was made during a break in production on The Brothers Grimm.
[edit] DVD release
The DVD version of The Brothers Grimm was released on December 20, 2005. Special features included deleted scenes, behind-the-scenes footage, and commentary from Gilliam.
[edit] Folklore References
- An old woman walks up to Cavaldi and holds an apple, a reference to Snow White.
- A frog is "kissed," in reference to The Frog Prince.
- While drunk, Jakob tells a story about a time they needed to guess the name of an imp, like in the tale of Rumpelstiltskin.
- There are 12 girls/princesses on the crypts that encircle the tower, the number is a reference to The Twelve Dancing Princesses.
- A mud creature in the film mimics the American folklore character of the Tar Baby.
- The mud creature also becomes a flat gingerbread man shaped character which is in concordance with the folktale and child's story of The Gingerbread Man.
- The Queen lives in a tower in the middle of the woods, with neither stairs nor door, and only one room and one window, a reference to Rapunzel. Furthermore, Jacob Grimm uses the hair of the Mirror Queen to descend from the tower, in a further allusion to the folk-tale.
- When the woodsman puts one of the girls in the crypt he puts a pair of glass slippers on her feet and pricks her finger, possible references to Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty, respectively.
- At the end, Angelika is awakened by a kiss of true love, another reference to Sleeping Beauty.
- At various points, the Queen looks at the mirror asking "Who's the fairest of them all?," a reference to Snow White
- An obvious reference to Little Red Riding Hood early on as she is the first girl we see going missing, and another one later when another of the girls is talking to Jake's horse.
- A very obvious reference to Hansel and Gretel as Gretel becomes the second girl we see going missing.
- Right at the start of the movie, young Jacob trades his cow for magic beans, in a reference to Jack and the Beanstalk.
- The brothers are forced to do menial housework while their French captors take the food and gifts meant for them, cleaning the floor in an imitation of Cinderella.
- The Mirror Queen sleeps on a bed consisting of a tall pile mattresses stacked on top of each other, a reference to The Princess and the Pea.
- The kid who is captured by the horse ("eaten") first approaches the horse by saying things like "what a pretty mouth you have" or "what a pretty ears". This is probably a reference to Little Red Riding Hood in which she asks questions about her grandmothers ears, mouth, etc.
- When one of the French soldiers is about to be eaten by a tree, he puts his sword in the ground to try and pull himself away. When the tree eventually kills him, the sword is left in the ground in the same way Excalibur is portrayed in the stone. So this might be a reference to King Arthur
- The necessity for the Queen to drink the blood of innocent maidens is a reference to the Elizabeth Báthory, as well as old Dracula stories.
- Cavaldi, wearing the armour made by the Grimm brothers, is a reference to the Knight in shining armour.
[edit] External links
- Official site from 6 August 2005, as indexed at Archive.org and retrieved 4 May 2007
- The Brothers Grimm at the Internet Movie Database
- The Brothers Grimm at Rotten Tomatoes
- Dreams (Terry Gilliam Fanzine): The Brothers Grimm
- Rambles.net review by Tom Knapp
- Interview with director Terry Gilliam at YoursDaily.com
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