Fairy-Tale Files, published once weekly, feature three variations of a fairy tale chosen by one of Fairy Tale Review’s editors.
The 2011 action film Hanna has, according to its director Joe Wright, “a lot in common with fairy tales like The Little Mermaid or Hansel and Gretel: there’s a family living in a wood cabin in a forest and rites of passage unfold in the story. The child has to go into the world and experiences and meets evil which has to be overcome.” The protagonist, who spends the first fifteen years of her life living in a remote cabin with her father, has only a book of Grimm fairy tales to read.
One of Joe Wright’s major influences, according to interviews, is David Lynch. Fairy Tale Review‘s own Kate Bernheimer once described Lynch films as fairy tales, albeit particularly grotesque ones, as seen in the surreal Eraserhead.
David Lynch’s film Blue Velvet also has a number of fairy tale connections, perhaps most notably to The Wizard of Oz, even down to a character named Dorothy, who is far away from home and trapped by a force she can’t fight alone.
This edition of Fairy-Tale Files is brought to you by Fairy Tale Review Prose Editor Joel Hans.
