Snow-White and Rose-Red (1979)
In an enchanted forest, the princely brothers Michael and Andreas get lost and are transformed, by a mountain spirit who jealously guards his underground treasure, into animals until the unlikely event of sincere love from a human. The only persons who may be able to give such love are the local commoner sisters Snow-white and Rose-red, who are kind and helpful by nature and stand to harvest unimagined rewards.
Watch Trailer
Cast
Similar titles
Reviews
"Schneeweißchen und Rosenrot" is an East German DEFA movie from 1979, so this one will soon have its 40th anniversary and is nonetheless among the most recent ones. It is relatively short at 70 minutes only, but (like some other fairy tale film) also relatively well-known still today. It is a color movie of course and brings another Brothers Grimm story to the screen. The director is Siegfried Hartmann, one of the most known fairy tale filmmakers back then, and he also worked on the script. The actors aren't really known here, most of them Germans, but also Czechs were cast. This is the story of two young women whose love lifts a curse from two animals who were humans before. But a wicked magician turned them into beasts and only true love can turn them back. This is the stuff fairy tales are made of. So far so good. Sadly, I was not really that convinced. One problem was that the two girls, despite their titles were pretty much interchangeable in my opinion. Then the film also suffered a bit on the artistic side because honestly, this movie was not half as impressive as it could have been. the magician's cave at the end was solid, but there were major letdowns on other occasions, such as the bear costume. I vaguely knew the story before watching this movie and I remember it being much more significant and touching and dramatically relevant than it turned out in this movie. There are many better GDR fairy tale films. I suggest you watch these first before you consider taking a look at this one here featuring the lesser known Snow White and her sister of course. Not recommended.
Another of those well-made children's film the East German DEFA was famed for. Nice cast - Hans-Peter Minetti is very fine as the Ghost of the Mountains - good direction and set design make a pleasing film for all ages, though the often used and monotonous Pan-pipe (at least it sounded to me as a Pan-pipe) was getting on my nerves after a while.