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Three Wishes for Cinderella
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - United Kingdom - Second Run Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (25th December 2024). |
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The Film
 Cinderella (Kolya's Libuse Safránková) lives under the thumb of her wicked stepmother (Bread and Roses' Carola Braunbock) and spoiled stepsister Dora (I Killed Einstein, Gentlemen's Dana Hlavácová). The servants love her and the animals help her in the backbreaking daily chores meted out by her stepmother, but she's really a tomboy at heart. While her stepmother and stepsister prepare for a visit from the King (Mephisto's Rolf Hoppe) and Queen (The Dead Stay Young's Karin Lesch), Cinderella comes across the Prince (singer Pavel Trávnícek) - who has absconded to the forest for some hunting - when she disobeys her stepmother and leaves her dove friends to sort lentils mixed in with ashes in order to ride her horse. Cinderella desires at first not to go to the ball but to follow the Prince on the hunt, and her owl guardian angel Rosalie causes a hunting uniform to hatch out of one of three nuts on a sprig given to her by a servant. When she bests the prince at the hunt, his pride is hurt but he is nevertheless smitten with her (although he does not recognize her from their first meeting). From the second nut springs a gown for the ball, but she rides her own horse rather than a magic carriage (an innovation from the Perrault version of the tale) through the snow. Her face hidden behind a veil, Cinderella dances the night away with the Prince. She does not flee the palace at midnight due to a fading spell but leaves of her own accord after providing the prince with a riddle of three questions he must answer to discover her identity. Three Wishes for Cinderella is a charming family film with pronounced feminist elements drawn from nineteenth century Czech writer Božena Němcová's version of the tale, itself streamlined in adaptation of some of its Grimm-like darker elements while presenting a self-possessed heroine who gets some magical help but still plays things her way through a touch of perverse wit without the true malice of her stepmother and stepsister. Disney's recent live-action version seems retrograde by comparison in spite of its attempts to modernize its heroine and has faded from memory (along with their live action Beauty and the Beast). Fans of darker Czech cinema might be surprised at seeing The Cremator's Vladimír Mensík in a comic supporting role, but those who delve deeper into Czech comedy will find him the lead or secondary leads in films like Happy End and Tomorrow I'll Wake Up and Scald Myself with Tea. A Czech/East German co-production shot largely in Germany, Three Wishes for Cinderella looks more rustic than German and Russian fairy tale movies and, indeed, would make a lighter companion piece to the likes of Valerie and Her Weekend of Wonders. Director Václav Vorlícek had previously directed family-oriented fare including The Girl on a Broomstick (for which he would make a Harry Potter-esque sequel nearly forty years later) and would subsequently direct two more Němcová adaptations with How to Wake a Princess and The Prince and the Evening Star. The adaptation by Frantisek Pavlícek was quite a departure from prior credits like Marketa Lazarová, and his script would be remade for the lavish 2021 Norwegian version – the original Czech version still a Christmas favorite in that country – rather than going back to the source story. 
Video
Regularly available in European territories due to its popularity – an English-dubbed version was shown in the U.K. on the BBC and in the U.S. as part of CBS' children's programming, however it now appears to be lost with the American the expected PAL-to-NTSC conversion of a European master – with multiple Czech and German DVD editions. A Czech Blu-ray appeared in 2016 but the more recent German and Norwegian Blu-rays seem to have been motivated by the 2021 remake – including releases with the Czech film as a bonus for the remake – and Second Run's 2024 Blu-ray upgrade of their 2016 DVD is presumably from the same 4K Czech National Film Archive restoration as the disc cover makes no reference to it being a "new" restoration. Whatever the age of the restoration – prepared according to the organization's guidelines of preserving the way the film was projected, lab issues, reel change marks, and all (this one with Hungarian funding as the film is also popular there and their archives have been helping one another with rare materials) – the 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.37:1 pillarboxed fullscreen Blu-ray greatly enhances one's experience of the film if only familiar with it through the DVD editions. The chilly atmosphere of the East German snowy setting can be felt radiating off the screen – even if some of the faked snow in some scenes looks exactly that, it works for the fairy tale aesthetic – the authentic German palace locations also feel more real rather than looking the sets that they felt in standard definition (particularly the ballroom which once looked like a soundstage thanks more to the added heraldry than the architecture), and the costumes are also more vibrant with noticeable patterns and textures – the ragged edges of Cinderella's veil betray the idea that they might be a scrap of fabric from the fitting of her stepmother and stepsister rather – but the performances are also invested with more warm through subtle facial nuances (particularly Hoppe and Lesch who now seem to have more of an humored affection for one another and their son however stern they are with him to his face). 
Audio
The Czech soundtrack is included in 24-bit LPCM 2.0 mono – the German actors were dubbed in the Czech version and the Czech actors in the German version, of which we get a sample snippet in the included interview where it is also revealed that Trávnícek is dubbed in both owing to his heavy Moravian accent – with all of the post-dubbed dialogue, sparse effects, musical accents, and songs sounding relatively clean while the hiss has not been entirely scrubbed away as much for fear of the introduction of digital artifacts as the restoration practices of the archive. Optional English subtitles translate the dialogue and the song lyrics without any noticeable errors, although it does sound odd having Mensík's character Vincek called "Vince!" 
Extras
Film historian Michael Brooke recorded an appreciation for the 2016 DVD but the appreciation by film historian Michael Brooke (37:28) included here is newly-shot updating the his original script as he discusses Němcová as the "mother of Czech literature" and how her adaptation draws from the Grimm version while also observing that the origins of the Cinderella story go farther back in a number of cultures, and that the feminist elements she added were not at all alien to nineteenth century, and it was actually the Nazi occupation that disrupted Czech women's rights movements. He also discusses the popularity of fairy tale films during the Communist era as an escape from its realities – getting around censors thanks to their downtrodden protagonists and their mocking of the ruling classes – as well as how they fell out of favor in the mid-sixties during the Czech New Wave only to surge back in popularity after the Soviet crackdown. Brooke provides several tantalizing films to seek out, including others by director Vorlícek before settling into an appreciation of the film itself, including the adaptation – Bohumila Zelenková is not a pseudonym for the blacklisted Pavlícek but a real female writer who leant her name for official purposes and would later adapt the script for the director's How to Wake a Princess – and where it strays to more family-friendly alternatives to the "Grimm" elements, the circumstances of its co-production and casting, and offering an interesting interpretation of the three hazelnuts and their contents (suggesting that the hunting costume comes about as the requirement that Cinderella prove herself the Prince's equal rather than just as an answer to her wish to participate in the hunt).  The disc also include a 1929 silent adaptation "Popelka" 1929 silent adaptation (46:50) with English subtitle translation of the intertitles but not musical accompaniment, as well as the 1937 animated film "Střevíček" (5:13), the feature's theatrical trailer (2:37), and a restoration trailer (1:33).
Packaging
Second Run has carried over the 16-page booklet with an essay by Video Watchdog's Tim Lucas from the DVD edition in which he also discusses the antecedent and variations of the Cinderella story, including "King Lear" as well as another more direct inspiration on the Němcová version besides Grimm in the Hungarian "The Widower and His Daughter" as well as the changes to the film adaptation. 
Overall
While Cinderella in the West is more often associated with Disney than Christmas, Three Wishes for Cinderella is a wonderful example of Czech popular cinema that remains a holiday favorite throughout Europe.
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