Brothers Grimm
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Brothers Grimm |
| Original title | The Brothers Grimm |
| Country of production | Czech Republic , Great Britain , USA |
| original language | English , French , Italian , German |
| Publishing year | 2005 |
| length | 119 minutes |
| Age rating |
FSK 12 JMK 10 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Terry Gilliam |
| script | Honor Kruger |
| production |
Charles Roven , Daniel Bobker |
| music | Dario Marianelli |
| camera | Newton Thomas Sigel |
| cut | Lesley Walker |
| occupation | |
| |
Brothers Grimm (alternative title: Brothers Grimm - Learn to Fear ) is a fantasy film directed by Terry Gilliam from 2005 . He is hardly based on the historical Brothers Grimm , but reinvents them as fictional characters. Numerous motifs from the world of Grimm's fairy tales are alluded to, and stories are told about how the Brothers Grimm might have come up with their stories. The film opened in German cinemas on October 6, 2005.
action
Germany around 1811, at the time of the French occupation : The brothers Will (Wilhelm) and Jake (Jakob) Grimm roam the country and earn their living by driving out witches and evil spirits. While the people celebrate the two of them as heroes, nobody suspects that the Grimms are merely impostors: with the help of the stupid henchmen Hidlick and Bunst, they use tricks and deceptions to create gruesome creatures that the superstitious people consider to be real ghost figures. When Will and Jake finally offer their help, their victims are willing to pay a lot of money for their services. Jake, the docile of the two brothers, who collects sagas, fairy tales and folk tunes from all over the country and writes them down in a book, organizes the uncanny creatures for their deceptions. In Karlstadt, however, their swindle is exposed: The Italian torture master Cavaldi arrests Jake and Will and leads them to his master, the military governor General Delatombe. He puts the pistol on their chests: either they solve the mystery of Marbaden, or they are executed. By necessity, both enter into the trade.
Marbaden turns out to be a village on the edge of an extensive forest from which several girls have disappeared in recent months. Led by the trapper Angelika, whose two sisters are also among the disappeared, the rabbit-footed brothers set off. However, you must soon discover that the forest does indeed seem haunted and has a life of its own. Finally you get to its center, where there is a tall tower with no entrance and several tombs .
When more village girls mysteriously disappear and the magic forest decimates the crowd of Grimm's comrades-in-arms, it dawns on the brothers that they are not dealing with pretended spooks, but with real magic. With Angelika's help, Will and Jake finally find the secret: In the tower of the forest lives a woman who was the Thuringian queen hundreds of years ago . The vain and selfish monarch married a local king before the plague hit the country. For her own protection, she let herself be locked up in the tower and tortured the residents in order to get a spell known in the village to achieve eternal life - which she finally managed. Now she is looking for the key to eternal youth, because she lives forever, but still ages. In order to be young again, the undead had twelve girls from the village kidnapped, whose blood they needed for a corresponding spell. The kidnappers' henchman is a gamekeeper in the shape of a wolf, who later turns out to be Angelika's father, who was believed to be dead.
Just as the Grimms are about to bring the remaining children to safety, Delatombe takes the place with a regiment of soldiers and orders the bizarre forest to be burned down. The general leaves Will and Jake tied up, but Angelika can free them both from the flames in time. The trio set off into the forest together when Angelika's father appears and kidnaps her: Angelika is the twelfth girl. The queen, who has been strengthened in this way, blows out the fire and drives out the French army. Delatombe then tries to overcome the Grimms alone, but is killed by Will in a duel. To regain her youth, the witch queen has to perform a final ritual during an eclipse of the moon , which is interrupted by the Grimms. While Will sacrifices himself and seems to succumb to the witch, Jake smashes the magic mirror at the last moment and thus destroys the queen. This will break the curse. With a kiss of true love, Jake wakes Angelika, and the kidnapped girls wake up too. Will survived too and got a kiss from Angelika. The village celebrates the returning girls happily, while Will and Jake decide to lead a decent life from now on.
background
Fairy tale motifs
The film alludes to characters from various fairy tales by the Brothers Grimm, including Cinderella , Rapunzel , Little Red Riding Hood , Snow White and Hansel and Gretel . In addition, there are also fairy tale motifs of other origins. The many mattresses of the evil queen, stacked on top of each other, refer to The Princess and the Pea by Hans Christian Andersen . With the “gingerbread man”, a figure that is rather unknown in Germany appears, but is considered a typical fairy tale figure in the Anglo-American culture. Recurring references are made to a sequence at the beginning of the film in which Jack sells a cow as a boy and, to the annoyance of the family, receives magic beans instead of money - at first glance worthless. This alludes to the fairy tale Hans and the Beanstalk , which is particularly popular in the Anglo-Saxon region and is one of the oldest traditional fairy tales in the world.
occupation
Originally Johnny Depp was intended for the role of Wilhelm Grimm. Even should first Nicole Kidman , Samantha Morton and Anthony Hopkins be featured in leading roles. Robin Williams had already been hired, but then dropped out during production. When Matt Damon and Heath Ledger were determined to be the main characters, they were supposed to play each other's brother. However, they were able to get their roles switched. Terry Gilliam also accommodated two of his children while filming. His daughter Amy worked as his assistant on the production team, son Harry acted as a stable boy. Lukáš Bech can also be seen as a barman in a tavern, who years before was a big child star on Czech television (including in the series The Flying Ferdinand ).
Production and publication
The shooting took place from June 30th to November 27th 2003 in Ledeč nad Sázavou in the Czech Republic and in Prague . The budget was about $ 88 million. The costumes were designed by Gabriella Pescucci and Carlo Poggioli . Guy Hendrix Dyas was responsible for the production design. A scene that shows the Grimms and Angelika's first excursion into the forest and is considered one of the most complex and expensive in the film was cut out of the final version. It can be found in the extras of the DVD version.
The film was originally scheduled to hit US cinemas in 2004, but was then withheld. The premiere in the USA finally took place on August 26, 2005. In Germany the film started on October 6, 2005. On February 9, 2006 it was released on DVD.
reception
Especially in the USA, the reviews of Brothers Grimm were negative. Occasionally, members of the film team said that the poor result was largely due to the constant interference of producers Bob and Harvey Weinstein . These had rejected , among other things, Terry Gilliam's preferred cast (including Samantha Morton ) and fired the original cameraman Nicola Pecorini .
Reviews
The lexicon of international films described Brothers Grimm as "a film of baroque visual power and exuberant fantasy, which reforests the rather thin story with leitmotifs from German fairy tales and takes pleasure in lustful digressions, curious characters and idiocy". However, this has meant that "the plot does not develop any depth and always fails when the attempt is made to cast a timeless look at the horrors of childhood and its fairy tales". “It is charming how casually Terry Gilliam Grimm's fairy tale housed in his humorous horror story,” said Cinema . The film is "not nearly as dark and subversive" as originally planned, but offers "terrific goosebumps". Cinema's conclusion was: “Once upon a time there was a quirky fairytale potpourri with cheeky charm and two brave Hollywood princes. And it was amusing to the end ”.
Prisma wrote that "[t] rotz of great pictures, some atmospherically dense scenes and many playful details from the fairy tale world of the Brothers Grimm [...] Gilliam was obviously too interested in the spectacle". He has made “action heroes” out of the Brothers Grimm, two “dry linguists”, which “clearly goes too far”. The film therefore alternates "between skillful and extremely annoying scenes", which is why the viewer quickly no longer knows "where the head is and what Gilliam actually wanted: crude farce, horror or simply a box office success?"
Awards
Brothers Grimm ran in 2005 in the competition for the Golden Lion at the Venice International Film Festival , but lost Ang Lee's drama Brokeback Mountain , in which Heath Ledger also played a leading role. Gabriella Pescucci received the Umberto Tirelli Prize on Capri in 2005 for her costumes . In 2006 Heath Ledger won Actor of the Year from the Central Ohio Film Critics Association for his roles in Brothers Grimm , Brokeback Mountain , Casanova and Dogtown Boys .
The German Film and Media Evaluation FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the title valuable.
German version
The German dubbing was done by Film- & Fernseh-Synchron (FFS) in Berlin.
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| Wilhelm Grimm | Matt Damon | Matthias Hinze |
| Jakob Grimm | Heath Ledger | Simon hunter |
| Mercurio Cavaldi | Peter Stormare | Klaus-Dieter Klebsch |
| Angelica | Lena Headey | Bianca Krahl |
| Vavarin Delatombe | Jonathan Pryce | Bernd Rumpf |
| Angelika's father | Tomás Hanák | Lutz Riedel |
| Hidlick | Mackenzie Crook | Sven Hasper |
| Bunst | Richard Ridings | Uli Krohm |
| Mirror queen | Monica Bellucci | Christin Marquitan |
| mayor | Roger Ashton-Griffiths | Roland Hemmo |
| Delatombes servant | Martin Kavan | Stefan Fredrich |
| Gregor | Jan Unger | Peter Flechtner |
| Dax | Bruce MacEwen | Sebastian Christoph Jacob |
Web links
- Brothers Grimm in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Brothers Grimm in the online movie database
- Pictures of the film on cinema.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Brothers Grimm . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2005 (PDF; test number: 103 774 K).
- ↑ Age rating for Brothers Grimm . Youth Media Commission .
- ^ Max Evry: A Review of "The Brothers Grimm" . smart.co.uk (English).
- ↑ Production costs on imdb.com
- ↑ Brothers Grimm. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .
- ↑ Brothers Grimm on cinema.de
- ↑ Brothers Grimm on prisma.de
- ↑ Brothers Grimm. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 2, 2017 .