Il racconto dei racconti

The film consists of three different stories. In the first, the king and queen tried everything to have children, but without success. One day they learn about another dangerous way: the queen needs to eat the heart of a water dragon, prepared by a maiden. Her husband goes on an underwater trip. This whole idea will cost someone's life. In the second story, another king keeps a flea as a pet. Fed by blood and flesh, it turns into a Kafkaesque monster of considerable size. When the flea comes to an end, the king peels off its skin and organizes a competition for the daughter's hand: the winner must say who she belongs to. The third part tells about the beautiful transformation of an old woman into a young girl pursued by the king. Read more The film "Tale of Tales" was filmed based on the book of the same name by the Italian Giambattista Basile, which includes about 50 different stories. He was one of the first to write down many fairy tales, which were later processed by such famous writers as the Brothers Grimm and Charles Perrault. Director Matteo Garrone received prizes at the Cannes Film Festival twice. In 2008 for the film "Gomorrah" and in 2012 - for "Reality". "Fairy Tales" was already nominated for the Palme d'Or in 2015. In this film, the director used his central artistic approach - a mixture of reality and fantasy. For the screenwriters of the film, one of whom was Matteo Garrone himself, one of the problems was to choose a few of the 50 stories for the screen version. In addition, they should be available to the public. After a lot of work, they managed to draw up three interrelated stories. As the screenwriters said in one interview, they were struck by how modern the fairy tales are. All three touch on topics that still concern people: the desire to possess youth and beauty, a woman's obsession with a child, and the conflict between generations. Although Tale of Tales is an adaptation of an Italian work, the film was shot entirely in English to be open to an international audience. The main roles went to Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, John S. Reilly and Toby Jones.