It was the second time Perrault's fairytale had been tranferred to the screen,in the wake of Demy's wonderful "Peau d'Ane " , Michel Boisrond tried his luck with "le petit poucet" (1972) with mixed results .
The sun King's reign was a hard time for the humble;famine would often run rampant,particularly in 1793-1794 .Charles Perraut (1628-1703) lived in those troubled times ,and although disguised as fairy tales ,his stories reflected the realities of the era ; the "little riding rood" ending was sweetened when told to the children ;the moral was :"to eat or to be eaten" ; that's the story of le petit poucet (aka "Hop On My Thumb" aka " Tom thumb ") ; parents would often abandon their children (babies were found in the churches ;Saint Vincent De Paul founded the "foundlings hospital " and reportedly saved 600 children ).
Unlike Boisrond's screenplay ,which blended two stories (adding the story of a royal family with their daughter poisoned with protection) , Dahan's movie only kept the main plot and opted for Perrault's alternate ending ,which allows us to catch a glimpse of Catherine Deneuve ,the special guest star ,as a pacifist queen (unlike the writer's king who used his royal messenger to win the wars ).
All the scenes when the animals intervene are rather successful but,as the story was too short ,it had to be fleshed out to become a feature film ; then the worst sides of Olivier Dahan ( primarily a video director ;his only strong film being "la môme " ,aka "la vie en rose ,an Edith Piaf who owed a lot to oscar-winning Marion Cotillar) surface : would be realistic plunder scenes and "the man-with -the iron-leg " interventions make the movie look like a video game .
And why not an ogre with a human face? Jean -Pierre Marielle rose up to the occasion in 1972 ,in spite of an inevitable overplaying ;here the ogre looks like Darth Vader and the chase in the mountain with claps of thunder and flashes is clearly inspired by Disney's "Snow White and the seven dwarves".
The best of this curate's egg remains the pictures in the forest ,with sometimes splendid color ,and the harsh moral "to eat or to be eaten " is better applied when the wolves are howling in the night and in the surprising moment when Poucet forces himself to eat a snail (a French gourmet dish now).
The sun King's reign was a hard time for the humble;famine would often run rampant,particularly in 1793-1794 .Charles Perraut (1628-1703) lived in those troubled times ,and although disguised as fairy tales ,his stories reflected the realities of the era ; the "little riding rood" ending was sweetened when told to the children ;the moral was :"to eat or to be eaten" ; that's the story of le petit poucet (aka "Hop On My Thumb" aka " Tom thumb ") ; parents would often abandon their children (babies were found in the churches ;Saint Vincent De Paul founded the "foundlings hospital " and reportedly saved 600 children ).
Unlike Boisrond's screenplay ,which blended two stories (adding the story of a royal family with their daughter poisoned with protection) , Dahan's movie only kept the main plot and opted for Perrault's alternate ending ,which allows us to catch a glimpse of Catherine Deneuve ,the special guest star ,as a pacifist queen (unlike the writer's king who used his royal messenger to win the wars ).
All the scenes when the animals intervene are rather successful but,as the story was too short ,it had to be fleshed out to become a feature film ; then the worst sides of Olivier Dahan ( primarily a video director ;his only strong film being "la môme " ,aka "la vie en rose ,an Edith Piaf who owed a lot to oscar-winning Marion Cotillar) surface : would be realistic plunder scenes and "the man-with -the iron-leg " interventions make the movie look like a video game .
And why not an ogre with a human face? Jean -Pierre Marielle rose up to the occasion in 1972 ,in spite of an inevitable overplaying ;here the ogre looks like Darth Vader and the chase in the mountain with claps of thunder and flashes is clearly inspired by Disney's "Snow White and the seven dwarves".
The best of this curate's egg remains the pictures in the forest ,with sometimes splendid color ,and the harsh moral "to eat or to be eaten " is better applied when the wolves are howling in the night and in the surprising moment when Poucet forces himself to eat a snail (a French gourmet dish now).