When the Cannes programme was announced, more than a few observers noted that the main competition was packed with English-language productions from directors who usually speak another tongue. The first to come our way is a dazzling anthology of Italian fairy tales that will – to audiences of a certain age – call up memories of the terrifying 1970s TV series The Singing Ringing Tree. Matteo Garrone’s portmanteau is more beautiful than that. It’s more beautiful than most things. Careering from full-on horror to absurdist comedy, this film lives uproariously in a world where all things are possible, except, perhaps, escape from your loved ones’ worst decisions.
Based on a 17th-century compilation by Giambattista Basile, Tale of Tales intertwines three equally fantastic fables to dizzying effect. Salma Hayek and John C Reilly play a king and queen who, desperate for an heir, engage in a bizarre magical scheme involving a sea monster. Shirley Henderson and Hayley Carmichael, both heavily made up, are a pair of elderly sisters compromised by lascivious King Vincent Cassel. In the most bizarre episodes of the triptych, a delightfully irresponsible Toby Jones plays a ruler whose passion for a flea ends up propelling his daughter into the arms of an ogre.
The impressively versatile Garrone, who won prizes at Cannes with the gangster flick Gomorrah and the morality tale Reality, has left his Angela Carter aside and largely eschewed any Freudian or feminist deconstructions. After all, it doesn't take a boffin to extract worrying subtexts from the raw material here. King Vincent reacts with revulsion upon realising that his bride might really be an old woman. Queen Salma's gradual transformation from concerned parent to rampaging monster points up poisonous illusions about motherhood.
To say that Garrone plays it straight is not to suggest he isn't afraid to heighten at every opportunity. The veteran cinematographer Peter Suschitzky, David Cronenberg's regular collaborator, brings a richness to interiors that suggest the Italian renaissance and a romance to exteriors that would please Casper David Freidrich. Alexandre Desplat's score is predictably delicious. The eventual outbreaks of violence will delight event the most bloodthirsty Game of Thrones enthusiasts.
Should we worry that it doesn’t leave much of an aftertaste? The recent Cannes entry that Tale of Tales most resembles is, perhaps, Damián Szifron’s rampaging Wild Tales. Both put a matrix of stories on the screen. Both deal in black humour. Neither will change how anybody thinks about cinema. Great festivals should, however, make room for such entertainments.
