Inspired by the seventeenth-century Neapolitan fairytales of Giambattista Basile and drawing from a madly varied palette of influences, Gomorrah director Matteo Garrone’s English language debut is is a gorgeously grotesque triptych of fables.
It begins with a king and queen (John C. Reilly and Salma Hayek), unable to conceive a child until a sorcerer tells the queen to consume the heart of a sea serpent. The second tale stars Toby Jones in a note-perfect performance as a king who nurses a pet flea until it reaches the size of a small car. Finally, Vincent Cassel’s sex-obsessed king is tricked into an undesirable sexual tryst…
Deliriously inventive and shot through with an outrageous and twisted beauty, Tale of Tales is a riot of gothic fantasy, with a triumphantly unique vision of cinema at its macabre heart.
