Early in Snow White and the Huntsman is an intriguing moment in which Snow White (Kristen Stewart), imprisoned since childhood by the evil Queen Ravenna (Oscar winner Charlize Theron), whispers the Our Father — every word.
A positive display of Christian spirituality in a fantasy or medieval film is so rare these days that its presence (and prominent placement) suggests a thoughtful choice. Typically in such films Christianity is either absent — as in Mirror Mirror, this year’s other big-screen Snow White tale — or odious, as in Red Riding Hood, with its repulsive monster-hunting cleric and pathetic village priest.
At best, religion may be a benign ceremonial presence officiating at weddings or funerals, like the half dozen or so mitered, crosier-wielding bishops in the beginning of Snow White and the Huntsman at the fateful wedding of Snow’s widowed father (Noah Huntley) and his new bride, and again at a coronation ceremony at the end. (Even in medieval films with religious themes, like Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven and Robin Hood, I can’t remember a single depiction of Christian prayer.)
Alas, as Snow White and the Huntsman plays out, that early prayer seems more a curiosity than a clue, perhaps meant to suggest Snow’s purity, but not connecting to any larger religious interest or theme. A slain character’s body is burned on a pyre — not a traditionally Christian form of burial — and instead of a token prayer or religious gesture, someone sings a dirge-like ditty with vague lyrics like “Dark to light and light to dark / What brings us together is what draws us apart.” Another character’s body lies in state in a Gothic hall suggestive of a church, though there’s no religious iconography. Only a rose window in the coronation scene indicates a church context.
This is a long tangent over some 50-odd whispered words in an early scene. Unfortunately, it’s a good example of the general aimlessness of the film, which seems to have some good intentions but can’t follow through. First-time feature director Rupert Sanders has a good eye and steals from the best, notably Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro, but neither the sporadically striking visuals nor the earnest but dull screenplay holds the picture together.
Give it this much credit: Snow White and the Huntsman — let’s go ahead and call it SWATH — isn’t out to subvert, deconstruct or eviscerate its source material. This isn’t Red Riding Hood or Alice in Wonderland. Yes, it comes touted as “From the producers of Alice in Wonderland,” and certainly there are connections — most obviously the reinvention of the heroine as a plate armor-clad St. Joan of Arc warrior figure. And yes, as with Red Riding Hood, the shadow of Twilight isn’t entirely absent.
Once again, Stewart is the center of an incipient romantic triangle — this time between the rugged Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth, aka Thor) and dewy Prince William (Sam Claflin, who played the equally earnest missionary in the last Pirates of the Caribbean movie). Also, while Ravenna isn’t a literal vampire, she has a similar life-force-sucking shtick (when she wants Snow’s heart, it isn’t just as evidence of her death).
So, the film transposes its story from the register of fairy tale to that of epic myth — but it’s trying for unironic epic myth, iconic good vs. iconic evil. Iconic evil: check. Iconic goodness: There’s the rub.
Young Snow’s mother (who lives in this telling until her daughter is about 9) praises Snow’s tender heart when the girl brings home an injured bird. After her father remarries, Snow’s innocence is shattered by the sight of his murdered body. No cheery singing despite being reduced to scrubbing in rags for this Snow White.
The movie misses a trick when Snow escapes from her dungeon. For a moment she comes face-to-face with a traumatized fellow prisoner, a girl ravaged by Ravenna’s magic — and although Snow has keys to the dungeons, she turns and flees, making no effort to free the other victim. Not that I blame her a bit; it’s completely understandable under the circumstances — but not exactly iconic goodness in action.
It must be acknowledged that casting is a problem. Though a likable presence, Stewart doesn’t project iconic goodness (and while she’s perfectly nice looking, any magic mirror that thinks she’s a threat to the stunning Theron needs a good Windex rubdown). To make matters worse, Stewart’s hair isn’t remotely black — or even “raven,” as Julia Roberts’ catty evil Queen snarks in Mirror Mirror. (Speaking of which, why is Theron, in every other way everything the movie needs in an evil Queen, playing a character named “Ravenna” as a blonde? Yes, yes, she transforms into what I’m assuming is an unkindness of ravens, as opposed to a murder of crows. Still: black hair.)
Hemsworth is excellent; he has a terrific emotional breakdown that shows he can be a lot more than Thor. He and Theron dominate the film; I’m not saying I wish the filmmakers had made a movie called Ravenna and the Huntsman, but I can’t deny it might have been more interesting.
There are echoes of Alice’s feminist grievances against male privilege and oppression of women. Here, though, it’s not the heroine who voices them, but the evil Queen, most prominently in a pointedly Freudian bedroom scene that could as easily be read as subverting feminism as affirming it. In a flashback, we learn that as a young girl Ravenna was initiated into all possible forms of witchery by a bitter old sorceress before her (possibly a mother or aunt). Which is the real evil: patriarchal oppression or embittered feminism? Take your pick.
What about the visuals? Well, there are some sights worth looking at, but too much of the film is mired in the bleak, gritty world of Hollywood Medieval Grunge — that generically unpleasant big-screen milieu of muddy roads, grubby villagers, rude wooden structures, chilly stone and iron, dark forests and generally pervasive earth tones. Have filmmakers never looked at any medieval art? They had pretty colors back then, I’m almost certain.
I know, I know, the land is blighted by the evil Queen’s tyrannical rule. Spare me. Gritty earth tones are what’s in, from Wrath of the Titans to John Carter. Sure, a little movie called Avatar went crazy with the Technicolor eye candy a few years ago, and some people went to see that, but who wants to make the next Avatar?
Tarsem Singh’s Mirror Mirror may not have been any great shakes in the writing department (and neither is SWATH), but ah, visually it was sumptuous art-house catnip for the family-film crowd. I watched Mirror Mirror with eyes wide, jaw not infrequently agape. Its box office may not have been spectacular, but for what it’s worth I would 100 times rather revisit the gorgeous world of Mirror Mirror than the grungy world of Snow White and the Huntsman.
There is one sequence that goes all-out for beauty and wonder (though it’s too overtly indebted to Pan’s Labyrinth) — and it opens the door to the movie’s one other intimation of spiritual significance. (Mild spoiler warning.)
Unexpectedly, Snow finds herself in a serene fairyland called “Sanctuary,” where she stands before a majestic creature with symbolic roots in both Christian and pagan mythology and receives what we are told is a “blessing” from it. Then, alas, comes a banal act of violence that shatters both the numinous moment and the illusion of “sanctuary.” Apparently good magic, unlike bad magic, is more pretty than powerful.
In the third act, Snow gives a St. Crispin’s Day–type speech in which she declares portentously of the Queen, “I have seen what she sees. … I know what she knows. I can kill her.” The implication is that when Ravenna was preparing to absorb Snow’s life force, Snow got a glimpse of Ravenna’s soul — and her weaknesses — so that she is uniquely able to kill the Queen. When the moment comes, suffice to say, it’s a major letdown. They promised us an Aragorn-and-the-palantír moment; what they deliver is a lame crane kick.
Strangely, the romantic angle is so underplayed that not only does Snow never get a real live kiss from either potential love interest, when the film ends both potential suitors are standing at a respectful distance. I’m not pining for a return to the era of “Someday my prince will come,” but shouldn’t a story with sleeping death awakened by true love’s first kiss end with joyous union?
P.S. Walt Disney created seven memorable characterizations for his seven dwarfs. Mirror Mirror managed at least four. I would have to see SWATH again to decide if they managed as many as one.
Steven D. Greydanus is the Register's film critic.
Content Advisory: Some frightening images and fantasy violence; a bedroom scene that turns murderous (nothing explicit). Teens and up.
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What?! The crane kick wasn’t lame!
Todd: The ACTUAL crane kick wasn’t lame. I am on record regarding its awesomeness. But a) a crane kick is no substitute for an Aragorn-and-the-palantír moment, and b) what we get here is only like the crane kick in some notable (i.e., dramatic or plot-level) ways, but not in awesomeness.
Very well written, Steven. You hit upon the very thing that is usually lacking in most films: the numinous. Even when it’s there, as you mention, the film will transition away from it. Why? Because the numinous ultimately leads to Christ the Creator (in one way or another). And Hollywood doesn’t want to go there. http://www.davidathey.com
Syfy Channel had a lot of promo spots for this movie this week.
Well, there is the historical angle for justifying the evil queen’s name as Ravenna, independent of hair color. After the Western Emperor abdicated, the city of Ravenna became the stronghold from which power projected on the Italian peninsula. Sometimes, this was what was left of Western Roman power. Sometimes, it was Byzantine power (Belisarius took Ravenna by means of a ruse). Sometimes, it was other powers holding sway in Ravenna. Regardless, Ravenna became something of an alter-Rome, a shadow of the eternal city whose only real advantage was its strength as a fortress. Where Rome was always strength and beauty (and much else besides), Ravenna was only strength, and became strength for whoever held it. So the evil queen as an alternate, shadowy rendition of the legitimate (and presumably good) queen could make sense.
Of course, if they can’t get Medieval right, it’s probably just wishful thinking to suppose they can anything right about the 6th century.
Snow White does try to release Greta and Greta tells her to run. And I think a rejuvenated Greta was in the coronation scene which suggests that with the passing of Ravenna Greta got her stolen youth back.
Yeah, that Lord’s Prayer was one of the most disorienting, surprising things I’ve experienced at the movies in years. Wow. Where did that come from?
And yes, Lieven is correct in the previous comment: (SPOILER:) Snow White does try to rescue the girl from the tower but can’t get the cell unlocked. And yes, in the end, the girl has been released from the curse.
Wow, Steven. I had written off MIRROR, MIRROR, but now I’ll have to see it. I really loved the look of “SWATH” (ouch, I can’t believe I’m calling it that), with the exception of a couple of scenes that were far too directly ripped off from LORD OF THE RINGS. I especially loved the Sanctuary scene: it had some brilliantly imagined details and critters. But if you like the look of MIRROR, MIRROR better, then I’ll just have to bit the bullet and go see it.
I thought the scene with the stag was more reminiscent of PRINCESS MONONOKE than PAN’S LABYRINTH. Actually, quite a bit of the film made me think of Miyazaki: Snow White’s encounter with the troll made me think of SPIRITED AWAY’s Chihiro, and how she responds to the greed monster.
One scene that bothered me: We’re told that the Dark Forest gets power over Snow White by sensing her weakness. Well… what about the Huntsman himself, who is a walking pile of weaknesses? Why doesn’t the Dark Forest gain any power over him?
You wrote, “Though a likable presence, Stewart doesn’t project iconic goodness (and while she’s perfectly nice looking, any magic mirror that thinks she’s a threat to the stunning Theron needs a good Windex rubdown).” But you’re wrong there: The mirror is referring to Snow White’s true beauty, not her glamorous appearance. That’s the whole point: Snow White is beautiful at heart, whereas the wicked queen is beautiful only in a cosmetics-commercial, striving-for-eternal-youth sense. I think it’s exactly the right choice to have Snow White be attractive in her appearance, but not a knockout. She looked beautiful, but more importantly, she looked real. Ravenna, by contrast, is a manufactured goddess—a whitewashed tomb.
As for your confusion about the anticlimactic resolution of the “romantic angle” ... can you say sequel? They strike *exactly* the same note as the final scene in THE HUNGER GAMES which, hard as it is to believe, also involves a Hemsworth brother. And there are already plans afoot for a sequel to SWATH.
I was so pleasantly surprised by this film: I just hastily blogged about it to get my first impressions down.
Thanks for your thoughtful contrasting comments, Jeffrey. Good stuff there.
I agree with you that the Sanctuary sequence is visually fantastic (and yes, I also thought of Princess Mononoke in connection with the stag whose appearance ends, in my book, so disappointingly, though everything else seemed to me dependent on Pan’s Labyrinth: the animal sprites, the eyeball fungi, etc.).
But weren’t you disappointed that “Sanctuary” ultimately so clearly isn’t? That there is no sanctuary? (Spoiler warning.) I mean, the bad guys apparently find the passage and just bring their badness into that lovely fairy world, and all that beautiful good magic is powerless against them. Bad magic is powerful; good magic is only pretty.
And yes, there are other striking images here and there, like the Queen’s milk-white bath, and the magic mirror itself — an effect that I thought very old-school Cameron, combining the liquid metal T-1000 with the morphing water columns from The Abyss. (Incidentally, SWATH’s magic mirror pales in comparison to what Tarsem does in Mirror Mirror — which, BTW, comes out on home video this Tuesday. If you, Jeff, aren’t dazzled by its visual delights, I’ll eat my hat.)
But for the most part SWATH seemed to me visually bleak, chilly and unengaging. The Dark Forest (I think we agree) was a gnarly Burtonesque cliché with stock nightmare images — exactly the sort of forest that Tarsem was at paints to avoid in Mirror Mirror, to lovely effect.
Perhaps my central critique of the film, and my main problem with the character of Snow White, is that she doesn’t represent (and Stewart doesn’t project) “iconic goodness.” Don’t get distracted by my parenthetical snark about Stewart and Theron’s relative physical beauty! (I was really just playing with the presuppositions of the original fairy tale, there. Note my deliberately generalized language: “Any magic mirror…”)
It’s precisely my point that on the level of “true beauty” (i.e., inner beauty), this Snow is a nice girl, and certainly a sympathetic one who got a raw deal in life, but not a heroine who embodies iconic goodness in the way that the Queen embodies iconic evil. The screenplay tells us over and over how extraordinary Snow is, but doesn’t create a character who is extraordinary in any way — extraordinarily “fair” inside or out.
I’m not saying that Snow isn’t “fairer” than Ravenna in this inner-beauty sense — but surely that’s setting the bar about as low as it can possibly go? Surely every single woman in the kingdom is “fairer” than Ravenna in that sense—and in any case it isn’t that sort of “fairness” Ravenna that inquires about from the mirror.
When do we see Snow demonstrate notable virtue or exhibit remarkable purity of spirit? There’s that Our Father, a nice enough moment. And I like the concern she shows for Greta and for the people at the river village, though I wouldn’t say that either incident rises above ordinary decency. Certainly the bridge troll seems to sense something special about Snow, but I want the filmmakers to make me feel it, too.
Clearly I missed something in the sequence in the tower (in my memory it happened so fast), and it seems Snow was as powerless to help Greta as as she was the villagers at the river. Even so, in structuring its story so that Snow is completely disempowered to help anyone or to do anything heroic until the third act (which we agree it botches in the end), it gives us a protagonist who is not the iconically good heroine the movie needed. I much prefer Lily Collins’ Snow from Mirror Mirror — a much more “empowered” heroine, though she remains a girly-girl even when wielding a sword, and never wears plate armor.
Your point about the romantic angle and the sequel, and your Hunger Games comparison, seems to me spot on—but in that case shouldn’t they have saved the poisoned-apple / sleeping-death-awakened-by-true-love’s-first-kiss bit for the real climax in some later film? My objection is not necessarily to a Snow White movie that ends indecisively with respect to the romantic angle or anything else, but one in which Snow White bites the poisoned apple, dies, is brought back by the kiss of love, followed by the Queen’s death, and still ends with Snow seemingly aloof from her lover.
Another problem I had with the film was that it did absolutely nothing to make the mythology of the poisoned apple and the reviving kiss work in this context. Very, very clearly all that stuff is here for the sole reason that it’s in the original fairy tale; if one didn’t know the original, it would just seem random and inexplicable. Why does the Queen bother with a poisoned apple at all? Why not just fall on Snow in the forest as an unkindness of ravens and overwhelm her? And why does Snow wake up after a special kiss? Viewed sui generis, it seems as random as Superman’s amnesia kiss in Superman II.
P.S. I appreciated your blog post, Jeff. Good insights. The only thing that makes no sense to me at all is your appreciation of the dwarfs. A fantastic cast, yes, but if they were given anything interesting to do, I’ve long since forgotten it. It should be a crime to throw away top-notch actors like that.
Is the burning of the dead dwarf perhaps meant to signal that the dwarfs are heathens - not only in the geographical sense but also in the religious sense? After all, they live in New-Agey fairy-land and have blind seer Bob Hoskins to waffle on about Snow White being “life itself,” “the One,” able to “heal the land.” This pseudo-messianic nonsense was perhaps the most hackneyed and irritating part of the film.
The basic problem created by the film is that it gives the Huntsman the essential role of the Dwarfs (as succour in the Forest) and, in one respect, of the Prince, yet the Prince and the Dwarfs are still around to play opposite their usurper. One could play that theme for laughs in a comedy sketch. Trying to playing it more or less straight in a sword-and-sorcery epic defies satisfactory resolution.
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