Schneewittchen

“The visual is essentially pornographic”, wrote Fredric Jameson, adding that “pornographic films are thus only the potentiation of films in general, which ask us to stare at the world as though it were a naked body”. Turning down the Prince’s (Toby Jones) invitation to watch the passionate lovemaking between the Evil Queen (Julie Christie) and the Hunter (Hanns Zischler), Snow White (Stacy Martin) retorts, “Rather than look, I’d rather hear”.

Sound supersedes sight in Stanley Schtinter’s austere anti-fairy tale Schneewittchen, an English-language remake of João César Monteiro’s Branca de Neve (2000), made largely of an audio performance of Robert Walser’s titular play set to a black screen, occasionally relieved by shots of passing clouds. In Walser’s radical reworking of the Grimm fable, a resurrected Snow White reconciles with the Evil Queen, denying any foul play and even seeking forgiveness for provoking her jealousy.

A parable for our post-truth times, Schtinter’s film provokes reflection on the ontology of a tale as it travels across languages, mediums, geographies and eras. If Walser’s play breaks the reader’s foundational trust in a benevolent, just world, Schneewittchen breaches the implicit contract with the film spectator, offering a motion picture emptied of both motion and pictures: a work where the visual can only appear as excess. 

– Srikanth Srinivasan