If you’re lucky enough to be Italian filmmaker Matteo Garrone you’re three for three at the Cannes Film Festival. His last two films, “Gomorrah” (which won the festival’s Grand Prix award in 2008) and "Reality," have hit the Croisette, and so too does his third picture, “Tale Of Tales.” But for this one, Garrone has taken a left turn into a dark fairytale world.
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“Perhaps not everyone knows this, but ‘Tale of Tales’ was the first book of fairytales to be written in the 17th century and inspired many great authors, such as the Brothers Grimm, Andresen, and Perrault,” Garrone said in a recent Cineuropa interview.
Evidently it was a risky endeavor, more than just creatively. “It wasn’t easy for me to secure funding for a fantasy film after producing such seemingly different work in the past,” he said. “Then we had technical problems, with special effects, the set design, the costumes — everything that could have gone wrong did. For me, a person used to being in control of everything on the set, not knowing exactly what the finished scene would look like, as we often filmed with green screens, was a bit frustrating. It was an adventure.”
Based on a 17th century collection of fairytales by Italian author Giambattista Basile, the film weaves realistic and fantastical elements together into three different storylines, one of which involves Salma Hayek eating the heart of a giant beast. Vincent Cassel, John C. Reilly, and Toby Jones also star.
The film is set to premiere at Cannes later this week, (in fact, it screens early on Thursday), so on the almost-eve of its debut, the Italian distributor has released eight clips from the movie. Watch below, plus check out a few new photos from "Tale Of Tales" as well.
