If Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in Grimm's fairy tale were gender-swappable, how would the story develop? The film "The Beguiled," directed by Sophia Coppola, is such a bold assumption. Although the Chinese translation of this film is "Under the Peony Blossom", which is magnificent and beautiful, and does not smell the taste of darkness, "The Beguiled" seems to cater to its positioning as a thriller romance.
During the American Civil War, Northerner Corporal John McBurny was wounded in the left leg and passed out in the woods, and Jane, a young girl at a nearby girls' school, found the dying man while picking mushrooms and took him back to a school where teachers and students were women, and while rescuing him, protecting him from being discovered by the Confederate Army. In this film, the "prince" persecuted by the war is John, and the two teachers and five students are "dwarfs".
When a handsome man enters the world of seven women, will he be as happy as Snow White, with the help of the dwarfs? Or is the story of the sexual transformation of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" a conspiracy of deadly women?
The arrival of the "prince" of the fallen
Sparsely populated, deep in the forest, mushroom-picking girls, the opening scene of the movie has a fairy tale atmosphere. When the teenage girl took the badly injured man back to the girls' school, the other women surrounded him, not being overwhelmed by his face, and they all reacted realistically, or with a little indifference. The man in front of him was dangerous, he was a northerner, and they were southerners, gender aside, which was why some of them didn't want to save him.
After their hesitation, Miss Martha, the head of the school, decided to take him in, at least to heal his wounds first. John was placed in a music classroom that was temporarily used as his bedroom. Miss Martha shut the others out and treated his wounds alone. Although the other girls complained about attracting wolves into the room, they still could not resist the curiosity about the man, and they all stood in the bedroom doorway where Miss Martha had banned it.
As John's health improved day by day, the girls sneaked into his bedroom and said a word or two to him. It's very interesting that they are all deliberately dressing themselves up to make a good impression on this man. He would also compete with other girls for the wind, and they all said that they were unique friends in John's heart. It's like the suspension bridge effect, dangerous men are more able to attract women's attention, and "dangerous temperament" is the key to making them beat their hearts faster.
If the impermanence of the attitude of the children's female students is driven by curiosity, then the elderly female teachers Edwina and Martha are not shocked, and have the insight of adults? Of course not. For the men who "live for a long time", they all have an urge to get close to him like those girls, and their feelings have a hint of lust.
A scene shortly after the film begins is impressive: On the night John is rescued, Miss Martha wipes him over and over again. Her movements were gentle and serious, but she could see that she was suppressing her emotions and hesitating slightly. I think at that moment, the whole movie strayed from the bland story triggered by a bunch of women's good intentions, because she realized the charm of a mature man, so he was destined to break the integrity of the seven mutually supportive women. This is different from the friendship of the Seven Dwarfs to Snow White in the traditional fairy tale.
In contrast to Miss Martha's efforts to resist the temptation, the female teacher Edwina is opening her heart to John. He said that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, and any woman who heard this sentence would have a moment of trance, this was a "Snow Prince" who was good at sweet words, and Edwina gradually developed a good feeling for him in the process of telling John about her heart.
The first half of the film is completely the story of John entering the hole, the women really want to attract his attention, but John is not bothered, and will not reject them, whether it is a child, a young girl who has just opened her heart, or a mature woman, he has created the illusion of "you are the most special to me" for everyone. His flirtation is consciously restraining these women, trying to upset the same-sex balance. But are women's bonds so easily broken?
"Prince" Nature Exposure
The film unfolds from a female perspective, and John's inner thoughts are not revealed. It could be a pleasure for him to balance the feelings of seven women, so after his injuries had healed, he had no intention of leaving, and wanted to continue to run the garden at Miss Martha's school.
Although Miss Martha was initially shocked by John, and John clearly hinted at her, she was the most sane of the seven women. Although the others were more than willing for John to stay, Miss Martha sensed that he had made the girls' school a miasma and did not grant his request. On weekends, the women dressed up elaborately and put on ornate dresses for John's practice.
When the audience thinks that "Snow Prince" is leaving the dwarfs and becoming a warrior, he exposes his wolf-like nature. John had never been a silly and sweet prince, and while he and Miss Martha and Edwina had been ambiguous, he entered the room of another schoolgirl on the eve of his parting. When discovered by the jealous Edwina, she accidentally pushed him down the stairs, and because of the severity of his injuries, the women had to saw off one of his legs.
The schoolgirl with whom he had cheated on him did not defend him, although she had been so eager to gain his favor before that she claimed that he had broken into her room in the middle of the night and had nothing to do with her.
Losing a leg was a fatal blow to John, or rather it made him feel less like a man. "Saw legs" are the revenge of women. On the one hand, like the first time she treated John, Miss Martha was the only "master knife man", and her decision may have implied a personal punishment for his playing with women. On the other hand, the crippled John is no longer a representative of desire, the women have no reason to fight each other, and their relationship will return to the way they were before the men came. From this moment on, the situation was reversed, and the women returned to a state of standing on the united front to deal with this grumpy man.
Miss Martha tried her best to get the girl to hang a blue strip of cloth suggesting that there were northerners in the Confederate house, but she was spotted by John on crutches, who, in a fit of madness, knocked off the chandelier with a pistol and threatened the women standing opposite. They are scared, but they have to figure it out on their own.
The "queen" is the final victor
In addition to Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Wicked Queen is also an important character. Although there is no sexually transfigured queen in the film, the setting of poison woman is not absent, and there is no age limit. From Edwina's missteps, to the young schoolgirl's aberration to Miss Martha's "saw-legged" incident, the women in this room are not simply cute dwarfs at all, but a group of deadly women. In the conspiracy to "kill" John, they also take off the cloak of the "dwarf" in the opening scene and transform into the thoughtful queens.
In order not to provoke John, the women obeyed him. One day, after John's seizure, Edwina, in order to appease him, took the initiative to enter his room and perform a beauty trick. On the other side, terrified women sat in the living room, praying that Edwina would return without incident. Suddenly, a little girl with a low sense of existence mentioned that "corporals like to eat dishes made of mushrooms that Jane picked back the most, if she accidentally brings back special varieties, is it possible to ...", this sentence reminds everyone.
Unnoticed by John, Jane brings the poisonous mushroom home. Everyone was planning a banquet to apologize to John. Like that night, the women again put on more ornate dresses and prepared exquisite dishes, especially John's favorite mushroom dish. The scene of the banquet was very eerie, Edwina and John were kept in the dark, and the other six women, with a hearty heart, pretended to be calm, and handed the poisonous mushroom dish to John in turn, as if they were about to complete a death ritual.
Although Edwina was unaware of the poisonous mushroom, she did not accept the mushroom that John had given her at the suggestion of others. The plan went smoothly and John died at the dinner table. In the movie, the intuition and tacit understanding between the women are very magical, just imagine if Edwina was blinded by love and confession, accepted that she did not like to eat, but it was a mushroom dish from John, their plan would fail, and everyone would die. However, this is the more "fairy tale" point of this movie, and there are no surprises in the feelings between women.
At the end, the seven women put John's body in a white cloth bag and put it outside the gate, where a blue cloth strip was hung. Inside the gate, seven women sit in the doorway, as in the opening scene of the movie, and John doesn't seem to have set foot in their world.
"Under the Peony Blossom", as a sexual transformation of the story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, is actually more appropriately called Snow White and the Seven Poison Queens. As a film directed by a female director, we can see that her emphasis on female power is not a personal struggle alone and difficult struggle, but a focus on women's tacit and tacit cooperation.
From this movie, whether male or female, attracted to heterosexual charm is not age-sensitive, so it is set up three categories of girls, adolescent girls and adult women, but it can be seen that no matter how they have a small quarrel with the same sex because of gender outsiders, the deeper friendship between them will not change. Edwina's love for John is the most real, she also regrets causing John to lose a leg, and wants to make up for him, John died at the right time when he and her were in a strong relationship, and Edwina did not blame the other six people. Collective interests are greater than individual private feelings, and such selflessness may be too idealistic, but it is also in line with the essence of its dark fairy tale.
The sexually transformed version of "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" does not leave the audience with the impression of a dream or a consummation, and if the injured John had not been picked up by the "Dwarf" in the first place, his fate might have been different.