Tale of Tales (2015)

From the bitter quest of the Queen of Longtrellis, to two mysterious sisters who provoke the passion of a king, to the King of Highhills obsessed with a giant Flea, these tales are inspired by the fairytales by Giambattista Basile.

Director:

Matteo Garrone

Writers:

Giambattista Basile (book), Edoardo Albinati (screenplay)

Stars:

Salma Hayek, Vincent Cassel, Toby Jones

23 wins & 15 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Salma Hayek	...	Queen of Longtrellis
Vincent Cassel	...	King of Strongcliff
Toby Jones	...	King of Highhills
John C. Reilly	...	King of Longtrellis
Shirley Henderson	...	Imma
Hayley Carmichael	...	Dora
Bebe Cave	...	Violet
Stacy Martin	...	Young Dora
Christian Lees	...	Elias
Jonah Lees	...	Jonah
Laura Pizzirani	...	Jonah's Mother
Franco Pistoni	...	Necromancer
Jessie Cave	...	Fenizia
Michael Martini	...	1st Circus Boy
Alessandro Campagna	...	2nd Circus Boy

Storyline

The film serves as Garrone's English-language debut and will interweave three separate story strands bookended by brief bits in which Italians Alba Rohrwacher and Massimo Ceccherini will play a street circus family. In one tale Salma Hayek will play a jealous queen who forfeits her husband's life. In another, Vincent Cassel plays a king whose passion is stoked by two mysterious sisters.

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Plot Keywords:

ogre | king | queen | castle | circus | 

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Taglines:

Inspired by the Italian fables of medieval Naples.

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Genres:

Drama | Fantasy | Horror

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for sexuality, nudity, some violence and bloody images

Details

Official Sites:

Le Pacte [France] Official Facebook [UK]

Country:

Italy France UK

Language:

English Russian

Release Date:

22 April 2016 (USA)

Also Known As:

Tale of Tales

Filming Locations:

Palazzo Vecchio, Piazza della Signoria, Florence, Tuscany, Italy

Box Office

Budget:

€12,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

€897,983 (Italy), 18 May 2015, Limited Release

Opening Weekend USA:

$9,000, 24 April 2016, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$80,809, 22 May 2016

Company Credits

Production Co:

Archimede, Le Pacte, Rai Cinema

Technical Specs

Runtime:

134 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The scene with the King of Longtrellis fighting the aquatic dragon was supposed to be much more dynamic, but Matteo Garrone had to recur to some expedients (i.e., the point of view shot of the King) because the dragon itself (an actual prop and not CGI) broke down while being shown to Garrone's son and his classmates during a break.

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Goofs

The renaissance guitar that Princess Violet plays appears that it may have synthetic strings rather than gut strings.

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Quotes

Imma: I want to be with my sister.

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Soundtracks

Se l'aura spira tutta vezzosa, F 7.15
Composed by Girolamo Frescobaldi

User Reviews

Glorious failure

We were looking forward to this widely acclaimed movie. The fantastic costumes, gorgeous make-up and fabulous stage sets are awesome. Successive introductions of real-life grotesque characters continually perk our our interest. Unfortunately, however,the story- lines dawdles and shrivel prematurely. Large doses of European cultural Viagral subsidies never really get the movie going. The 3 unconnected surreal 17th century fables by the famed Giambatista Basile (the first European to write down Cindirella and Rapunzel) were sliced and spliced haphazardly by a stoned rookie's so-called attempt at editing. A mini-trilogy sequence would perhaps have been a better choice to address the many facets of the interplay between what men and women desire and how fate thwarts their best plans. This would have spared us the confusion of Kings and Queens ruling over the same kingdom. It would have spared us the expectation that the stories would somehow come together with a clever twist at the end. The fables superficially seem as pointless as a toddler's box of crayons. But they are not moral plays - they just illustrate out human foibles with cartoon like exaggeration. Only one story ends happily ever after. One other ends badly, the other just stops. With professional editing this glorious failure could have been a classic.