Cannes 2015: Tale Of Tales Review - An Eccentric Game Of Thrones

For the first thirty minutes or so of its runtime, Tale Of Tales is a film nigh on impossible to crack. What is this bizarre low-budget fantasy and what is it doing In Competition at Cannes?

Is it an eccentric take on Game Of Thrones, complete with a morbid disregard for its own characters? Is it a Guillermo del Toro aping yarn of weird happenings and gruesome practical creatures? Is it a reclaiming of Grimm€™s Fairytales from the simplistic child joys of Disney? In that opening half hour, it comes across as all and none, a film of far-reaching, yet totally vague, aims.

And then Vincent Cassel turns to the camera after a particularly noteworthy point of ridiculousness and the whole thing becomes clear. The actor, here playing a King smitten by a smooth-singing but haggard maiden, is in on the joke, and has just realised it€™s about time the audience were too.

So, with Cassel kindly filling us in on the tone of (this part) of the film, then what is Tale Of Tales?

A broad deconstruction of the three-act structure, the film tells three stories in three parts; a Queen fearful of her son€™s inexplicable doppelgänger following the spiritual cause of his birth; Cassel€™s shallow king, who rejects his love once discovering her true appearance; a third royal family, whose patriarch becomes obsessed with an ever-growing flea. Each part of these three works as a standalone vignette as well as part of a traditional narrative, just as the three stories themselves eventually tie together, complete with a brief crossover prologue and epilogue.

The manner in which the film handles these different threads, told in a simple 1-2-3 structure, is commendable. There€™s no fancy crosscutting between tales. In fact, the oft-used fade-to-black which signals the passage of time within individual stories and would have so easily been capable of signalling a changing yarn, is kept well away from the jumps; it€™s all sudden cuts, with the shift in narrative focus given (at least initially) by the mis en scene.

It€™s here the balance of those original calling points becomes clear. The Grimm comparison above has the biggest bearing on the plot - everything from the fantastical medieval setting to the moral driven story tinged with a malicious streak screams Wilhelm and Jacob - but the Thrones and del Toro links are no less potent from a stylistic level. The film€™s budget may limit the quality of some effects, but there€™s a visual shorthand here that punctuates the jumps and lends each tale a distinct flavour.

Also important in that regard are the actors. Salma Hayek (the envious Queen), Cassel and Toby Jones (the flea-obsessed King) all lend a suitable theatricality to the stories, a smart tonal move that lends a timeless sheen. A few lines are woodenly delivered, but that stems from the way they€™re written, a likely intentional nod to the legacies the film is invoking.

All of that, then, comes together to make Tale Of Tales a subversive-yet-traditionalist fantasy, an ambitious film that makes the most of its vast, weird sandpit. It doesn€™t always hit its targets and at points can seem a bit aimless, but that doesn€™t stop it being a wholly creative treat.