La danse de la Corriveau

Nightmarishly brutal, set against wintry landscapes and medieval battlements, and rife with hopeless, starving peasants, it’s practically a full-bore horror picture, reminiscent of Game of Thrones, Joan of Arc, and Countess Dracula—the one where the title character, inspired by Elizabeth Bathory, stays youthful by bathing in the blood of young women. It’s also strongly influenced by a lot of smart, feminist thinking about why Snow White has so much staying power—and why the story is better when it’s the heroine who slays the monstrous matriarch.

The theme is spelled out in the opening scenes, in which Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) slaughters her newest king in bed while hissing that for women, who have been historically subjugated, “beauty is power.” Everything Ravenna has depends on her looks, and the ultimate judgment is delivered in the male voice of a golden-molten mirror that takes near-human form. In the first Grimm version, the Queen was Snow White’s mother, rather than her stepmother—the brothers altered it when they realized it was too close to the bone for their audience. But the hatred here is still primal. Ravenna’s jealousy of Snow White (Kristen Stewart) isn’t presented as mere vanity. She wants literally to devour the girl’s heart, the corollary to putting an infant to the breast in the mind of a mother perverted by the world of men. Nature itself is sucked dry by the Queen’s thirst for beauty.

Snow White and the Huntsman review x