The Brothers Grimm
Fortunately for me I don't believe the way this particular critic believed. Fortunately for me I realize the importance of being true to one's self, to one's efforts, regardless what others might think or decree through determined and subjective opinion.
And I am glad I did. Because with his latest film, "The Brothers Grimm", director Terry Gilliam has done the otherwise impossible: He has produced a work of visual invention, of seemingly endless imagination, a certain embodiment of his talents, abilities, and skills as a storyteller of the highest order. He has produced a work that is sophisticated, intelligent, and clever, decidedly beyond the grasp of the average movie-goer and, yet. . . has managed to create a work that transcends the boundaries and limitations that would otherwise certainly doom his effort to failure by Hollywood standards.
I will be the first to admit watching a Terry Gilliam cinematic production is a tiring effort. I have yet to sit through one of his films or movies and not come away exhausted, overwhelmed, and, simply, stunned. I have yet to experience one of his works and not think to myself, as I sit there, how confused, disoriented, distracted I am.
But willfully and delightfully so.
In "The Brothers Grimm" Gilliam starts with the Brothers Grimm and their stories, whose timeless fairy tales engage, entertain, and enlighten children of all age. Quickly, though, he sheds the traditional narrative that often accompanies these tales, and pursues a different truth about them: The Brother Grimms are, Gilliam suggests, traveling con artists--what are some times called 'grifters', circa 1796. They go from village to village in Germany, mounting productions of phony magic, while claiming their efforts to be real. Wilhelm Grimm (Matt Damon) is the lead of the partnership, given his cynical personality. His brother, Jacob (Heath Ledger), is the opposite: He sort of believes in magic, which partly goes to explain why he sold the family cow for a handful of magic beans when they were boys.
Their con and schemes don't last very long because they are exposed by Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce), a man who works for Napoleon in Germany, who decides that instead of punishing them they should be put to better use: He sends them to the village of Marbaden, where children are missing, and where appears that in the nearby haunted forest the trees have set upon the children who wandered in there. Joining the Brothers
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