Spielberg’s fairytale – Cannes festival
Cannes festival: Spielberg’s fairytale
Cannes May 14th. Festival letter by Torkil Baden
Ten year old Sophie with her friendly giant. Photo: Cannes Festival
CANNES/FRANCE: Everything Steven Spielberg takes on turns into gold. Whether it is science fiction (E.T.), jew persecutions (Schindler’s List) or adventure (Indiana Jones and Jurassic Park) he has a magic touch reaching out to audiences everywhere. Next Christmas he turns 70 years old, and he is still a magician. His new Roald Dahl-film is a treat for all ages.
The BFG tells about a little girl, Sophie, entering fantasyland like Alice in Wonderland, The Nutcracker, The Wizard of Oz and many other stories, including Gulliver’s Travels.
Monsters
A giant introduces her to the wonders and perils of Giant Country, including cannibalistic monsters
(2) invasiveness, (3) reversibility, (4) cost and (5) theare primarily local and include pain, priapism and sildenafil side effects.
. The BFG is a Big Friendly Giant standing 8 meters tall with enormous ears and a keen sense of smell. He is a dream catcher and teaches Sophie all about the magic of dreams.
The fantasyland becomes more and more real, even for the queen herself in Buckingham palace! The magic of dreams, the ability even for adults to loosen up and submit to playfulness, may be an important message through this movie.
Roald Dahl wrote the book. Photo: roalddahl.wikia.com
The popular children’s book of Roald Dahl is from 1982 (in Norwegian SVK- Store vennlige kjempe). An original plan for making a movie included late Robin Williams in the title role. After many years of planning the Roald Dahl estate finally gave the rights to Spielberg and Walt Disney
.
Shakespearian
12 year old Ruby Barnhill from England plays the charming orphan girl, being 10 years old at the shooting
. For the title role Spielberg choose English Mark Rylance. He is a Shakespeare specialist, even former director of The Globe, and it is a wise choice
. He handles the peculiar and playful language with a lot of humour, and his facial and body language is a universe of expressions. It is both a poetic and hilarious film.
Ruby Barnhill is Sophie. Photo: Cannes Festival.
In days filled with all kind of animation movies (also in Cannes) it is refreshing to see a fantasy film without cartoons, but with human beings, even if they are giants
.
The dramaturgy is well balanced with increasing suspense and action, and the music of John Williams is as always in the grand scale, tuneful, and enlarging the emotions with great skill.
Steven Spielberg, soon seventy and full of magic. Photo: Filmweb
The postproduction with the most advanced technical effects are of course on the highest level, giving credibility to the world of giants. The scenic design is full of magic and beauty. The Hollywood expertise turns out flabbergasting results and lets us enjoy the fantasy world.
But the impressing technique is, as always with Spielberg, an instrument for the story, this time not teardropping sentimental, but human.