Biancanieves (Pablo Berger, 2012)

This unorthodox retelling of the story of Snow White, which owes far more to the dark undercurrents of the Brothers Grimm fairytale than any subsequent Disneyfied bastardisations, had the colossal misfortune of entering production when The Artist hit the festivals to everyone's surprise and then swept away all resistance to the idea of a black and white, silent film shot in the cinematic environment of today. This is a great pity, because it has just as much merit as the runaway success of Hazanavicius's film, making as full use of the visual medium to convey content and nuance with an Eisensteinian deftness, and also constantly throwing in unexpected twists to the tale. The setting, transposed to the bullfighting world of Andalucia in the 1920s, at first bemuses utterly but then the pieces begin to slot into place and it becomes truly captivating, fully sustaining its two hours until an equivocal and startling ending.

8/10