Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

Cast: Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, Toby Jones, John C. Reilly, Shirley Henderson, Hayley Carmichael, Bebe Cave, Christian Lees, Jonah Lees, Laura Pizzirani, Franco Pistoni, Guillaume Delaunay.

Be careful what you wish for, what lays in your deepest part of your heart, for inside the beating crevice where love may sit, instead comes bile and control, bitterness and bewilderment. By listening to the demons inside the head instead of the truth that you know, you condemn others to rebel and undermine your authority.

It is the tale that carries all others along with it, that every tale comes down to resentment in one way or another and Tale of Tales is no different in its outpouring sentiment but it certainly delivers it in a very different way than could be expected from some of the more traditional tellers of younger, darker narrative fiction.

Tale of Tales takes the work of Giambattista Basile and brings it to the big screen in a method of storytelling that makes the work of The Brothers Grimm seem lacking in pace or even tempo, that the vicarious nature of the Bssile’s mood were more creepy, more able to draw on the dark without the resonating towards a good natured end.

The three interlocking tales, all combining the measure of control that is required to bend someone to your will, all using a measure of vile manipulation that the subjugated have to break free from their bonds of serfdom, are well spaced and follow the rule of surprise and convention with perfect timing; they are the antipathies of the heroic always winning out in the end, for in these tales there are no heroes or heroines, just survivors.

With very good performances by Shirley Henderson and Hayley Carmichael as the two grotesques that aim to fool a king, Salma Hayek as the guarded and jealous Queen of Longtrellis and Bebe Cave as the woman who fights against the intricacies of Court life and a King’s right to choose who deems is best for his daughter, Tale Of Tales is a wondrous film of imagination, it doesn’t quite reach the heights that it might have done but it certainly scales the wall and plants a flag of interest in stories from across the continent.

A well made and well thought out set of stories delivered with a resounding balance, Tale Of Tales is an out of the ordinary film that unleashes a new set of rules.

Ian D. Hall