Matteo Garrone has finally strode into the international territory after the success of his last two features, GOMORRAH (2008) and REALITY (2012). TALE OF TALES debuted this year in Cannes' main competition category and is based on a collection of tales from Giambattista Basile's PENTAMERONE in the 17th century.

The film contains 3 tales, happen in 3 different kingdoms (Darkwood, Stronghold and Highmountain) with authentic locations in Italy, three grandiose castles where human frailties fester between a queen and her son, two elder sisters and a king and his daughter. Garrone doesn't shy away from the gory and chilling elements in the rather dark fairy tales, each tale encompasses its own distinctively dreadful shocker, either an underwater battle against an aquatic dragon and the ensuing devour of its heart, a bat-like monster aiming for slaughter, a blood-sucking flea growing into an abnormally giant size, a primitive ogre running amok or a flayed old hag stained in blood, for sure, they are for adults only.

The tale in Darkwood is about a queen's possession of her adolescent son, a mother's love is unconditional, but unwisely she demands the same from the young prince, however, fate binds him with an identical-looking brother (they were born at the same day under the magic of the dragon heart) and they becomes inseparable, when the queen realises her love cannot be reciprocated, she has to resort to a necromancer to settle the score once for all. Hayek stimulates a possessed urgency in her performance as the queen, again proves that she is unjustly underused in Hollywood as an exotic bombshell only.

In Stronghold, it is a tale about youth and lust, two crone sisters, one of them seduces the king with her youthful voice, but is thrown out of the window when her unsightly appearance is discovered, then being unconsciously rejuvenated by a witch's milk, she transforms into a gorgeous beauty and charms her way to be the new queen, but when her sister badgers to stay with her in the palace, her off-hand lie will lead her sister to experience the inhuman cruelty so as to achieve the same effect, only in vain, eventually her deceitful front will dissolve sooner or later. Here, Shirley Henderson upstages the rest of the line-up with her gravitating persistence and pathos-occasioning commitment as the other sister.

The Highmountain tale, a king indulges on his petty hobby, which boomerangs on the marriage of his only daughter, who is married off to an gruesome ogre under his oath, then the young princess must learn from desperation about how to retrieve her freedom using her own hands, a potent feminist manifesto, led by an engaging performance from the newcomer Cave as the princess, also Jones is pretty solid as the king, whose approachable personality makes him more human in a tall-tale.

There is no denying Garrone is further perfecting his exquisite aesthetics in constructing such a grand scale where everyone is donned with gorgeous period costumes, the surreal ingredients are brilliantly crafted too (e.g. the unwieldy underwater shooting is realistic- looking albeit it is obvious not real),and Desplat's score is as captivating as ever. But a jarring dissonance comes from the dialogue, maybe because it is all interpreted in English, or it is adapted from fairy tales written centuries ago, a sense of frustration transpires whenever the characters are hampered by their very limited lines (notably for Hayek and Henderson, both are tremendously evocative, yet all the words they can utter fail to embody that),repetitious, tedious and uninspiring. Sometimes words don't have to mean anything, but if one must use them, use them wisely, otherwise, it will be a drag on the entire film. All three tales are crisscrossed into a coherent narrative, one has no difficulty to understand the plain condemnations beneath each tale and places favourite as one feels, in short, this film is indeed a cinematic spectacle on its own terms, one should not miss.

This is an anthology of adult fairy tales. Rather than one after the other with a tie together the film opts for a more unusual parallel running of the three stories.

If I was to sum this up in one word I would say it is unorthodox. The characters and plots do not conform to the normal templates you would expect, either do the themes. The plots twist and turn like a path into a dark enchanted wood.

This film has excellent production, acting, script. There were more boobs, gore, rape and breast feeding than I was expecting but saying that, this film is not pornographic, disturbing or violent; a pretty safe watch.

The story lines keep you guessing as they have a life of their own. This is very refreshing but causes a satisfaction problem I also did not expect.

Consider this: Imagine you watch a film about a man planning to sail to Hawaii. You follow him as he builds his boat, saves up money, gets his sailors licence and an anchor tattoo. Then fifty minutes in, the boat burns down so he buy a plane ticket instead. If you think that sounds really annoying then you may want to give this a miss.

Very interesting, very different, well acted and produced. It keeps you on your toes the whole way. Don't expect the pay-off to be too great or to head anywhere near you thought it would.

"Il racconto dei racconti", a.k.a. "Tale of Tales" is composed by three dark and weird entwined tales:

First: In a Kingdom, the Queen (Salma Hayek) is sad in her marriage with the King (John C. Reilly) since she cannot get pregnant. One day, a strange man offers an alternative that would depend on bravery and sacrifice: the King should kill a sea monster and take his heart out; a virgin should prepare the heart alone; and the Queen should eat it. Then she would be pregnant. Will it work?

Second: In another Kingdom, the libertine King (Vincent Cassel) overhears a voice of a woman singing in the village and he falls in love with the voice. However, the woman is Dora (Hayley Camichael),who lives alone with her sister Imma (Shiley Henderson),and both are old and ugly women. What can Dora do to avoid the King's harassment?

Third: In another Kingdom, the King (Toby Jones) raises a giant flea and his daughter Violet (Bebe Cave) that is reaching the age of getting married. When his flea dies, he shows its skin and promises the hand of Violet to the one that guess what the skin is. When an Ogre (Guillaume Delaunay) correctly responds the question, Violet shall move to the mountains with him. What will happen with the couple?

The film is extremely dark and original without use of cliches, and the best tale if certainly Vicent Cassel's one. The others are intriguing, but pointless. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Conto dos Contos" ("The Tale of The Tales")