Aschenputtel (1989)-A Well-Crafted Adaptation of Grimm's Cinderella

Undoubtedly when most people think of Cinderella, they will be imagining the version penned by Charles Perrault. This is only natural. This elegantly modernized version of this age old story has been adapted countless times over the years. The story is classic, and its themes are well-known and dearly taught; if you are kind, patient, and dutiful, you will someday be rewarded.

What many of you might not know is that there are literally dozens of different variations of the Cinderella story, told and retold by civilizations all around the world. And having read several of them myself, I can tell you that honestly, many of them are extremely dark. While the general story is the same, the way in which things unfold can often vary, in some very...interesting ways. (There is, no joke, a variation of Cinderella where the stepsisters cannibalize their mother.)

However, many of these versions will be entirely obscure to a Western audience unless you seek out an anthology of Global Cinderella stories. But, there is one foreign variation that some of you might have a better chance of being somewhat acquainted with, and that is the Brothers Grimm version. It also happens to be the version that Aschenputtel (1989) is based on.

The film opens by showing us a cheerful scene of Cinderella with her parents having a picnic together. Suddenly though, the wind changes dramatically, and the mother is led away coughing and trying to catch her breath. She then tells Cinderella that she must always be patient and to have faith in God, and that he will help and love her in return for it. The mother dies soon after, and, similar to in Perrault's version, her stepfather marries the evil Stepmother and the wicked stepsisters, and they in turn reduce her to nothing more than a housemaid in her own home.

The one thing you will probably notice first off is that the cruelty to Cinderella is notched up quite a bit here in comparison with other versions. She is not only forced out of her room, but is forcibly stripped of her nice house dress to do the chores in rags, her doll is thrown into the fire by the wicked stepsisters, and her mother even at one point stops her father from buying her a pair of nice new shoes and she is instead forced to wear wooden ones. Through it all her abuse Cinderella keeps quiet and obeys, and Petra Vigna, the actress of Cinderella here, does a great job at showing how hopeless and desperate she feels at times, although she remains silent about her mistreatment. The step-family also does a good job at being unlikable, but also entertaining to watch at the same time. However, this version is based off a considerably darker telling of Cinderella, as is shown in a scene where the stepmother encourages her daughter to chop off her own toe so her foot will fit in the slipper, while making the asinine argument that princesses never need to walk anyway. Her daughter is reluctant to do this at first, but in the end, both daughters end up mutilating themselves to deceive the prince. This chilling addition to the story in my view does more to emphasize the sadistic and twisted nature of the evil stepmother, that she is so blinded by her desire to be kin to the royal family that she is willing to encourage her own children to cripple themselves.

In the end though, each time the Prince rides off with one of the evil stepdaughters, (both of them attempting to deceive him in the aforementioned manner) a dove reveals to the Prince that “There is blood in the shoe!” therefore he realizes what has occurred, and dismisses both of the stepdaughters. This considerably more grim turn of events may turn some viewers off who are used to the more pleasant and cheerful ending of Perrault's tale, where Cinderella actually forgives her stepfamily and sets up her sisters with two handsome lords to wed, bear in this mind this film is doing nothing more than being faithful to Grimm's interpretation of Cinderella, and in my opinion it does a very good job of it.

However, there is one thing that potential viewers should keep in mind; the original language of this film is German, so unless you can find a subtitled version floating around out there somewhere, you will have to see the film with all the dialogue re-dubbed into English. Watching live-action English-dubbed foreign films is something that can take a little getting used to, as the voices often have a very strange quality about them wherein it seems they sound louder or more enunciated than they would normally be, and often the voices don't seem to completely fit the characters they are meant to belong to. Despite this, though, this English Dub is actually quite well made, and it does not take long in this movie's case to get used to the fact it is dubbed over. The voices in this film matched each actor quite well and the mouth movements are well-synced up. Overall, this is a movie I would highly recommend Aschenputtel if you are at all curious about the Brothers Grimm's take on Cinderella. It is an excellent adaptation and hopefully will be a good way to get people better acquainted with their version of the story.