Into the Forest

Magical, charming, enticing, surreal and occasionally frightening…INTO THE FOREST, featuring five classic fairy- and folktales produced by renowned East German DEFA Studios, is all this and much more. Guaranteed to entertain young and old, this Limited Edition 3-Disc Blu-ray set is presented in a sturdy slipcase with collector’s book.

The selected ‘Märchenfilme’ (fairy tales) are inspired by the works of authors such as the Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm Hauff and Hans Christian Andersen. 

DISC 1 starts with THE DEVIL FROM MILL MOUNTAIN (DER TEUFEL VOM MÜHLENBERG) from 1955, directed by Herbert Ballmann. Based upon folk legends stemming from the Harz area in Saxony and Thuringia, the film is surprisingly action-laden and rather violent as far as folktale adaptations go. It concerns a greedy mill owner, simply known as Bergmüller (Willy Kleinau), whose mill stands high on a hill and who wants to force the other millers in the valley to use his mill to grain their ground, so he may profit from it. However, another mill, namely the forest mill near a river, which is operated by the Waldmüller (Hans Klering), his bickering wife (Lotte Loebinger), their son Jörg (Hans Peter-Minetti), the orphaned serving girl Anne (Eva Kotthaus), and others workers, is much more conveniently located for the neighbouring millers to use as opposed to the mountain mill. This angers the Bergmüller, who, together with some of his own workers, draws up a dastardly plan to sabotage business for the forest mill - namely by disguising themselves with devils masks and setting the forest mill ablaze, but not before stealing the flour first! Jörg, woken up by the brightness of the flames and the smoke, manages to rescue Anne (whom he’s in love with), her kitten, his parents and the other workers. Although they manage to escape, the entire mill is reduced to ashes and with it the livelihood of the Waldmüller and his workers. To add insult to injury, Bergmüller returns to the scene of the crime and offers help, while Jörg testifies that he saw the shadow of the devil in the rising flames. With nowhere to go, orphan Anne is meant to work for the scheming Bergmüller, while Jörg seeks employment at a nearby castle. Horrified at the idea of taking up residence at the Bergmühle, Anne flees into the forest and encounters three gigantic forest spirits, called ‘the good Köhlers’ who offer their help… This is fast-paced with plenty of twists and turns and great performances all ‘round!

Next up is the well-known and immensely popular classic THE SINGING RINGING TREE (DAS SINGENDE, KLINGENDE BÄUMCHEN) from 1957, directed by Francesco Stefani. Essentially a morality tale, it concerns an arrogant, spoiled Princess (Christel Bodenstein), her long-suffering father, the King (Charles Hans Vogt), the Princess’ nurse (Dorothea Thiesing) and a Prince Charming (Eckart Dux), who makes his way to the castle to present the Princess with a small chest filled with precious pearls and to ask for her hand in marriage - to the delight of the King.

The Princess, however, rebuffs the Prince by pointing out that every idiot can present her with pearls. No, what she wants is the singing ringing tree, although there’s a catch: the magical tree only sings and rings if the Princess truly loves the Prince and well, nobody actually knows where to find it. Nonetheless, adamant to find tree, the Prince searches the entire land until he enters a surreal kingdom ruled by a cunning Dwarf (Richard Krüger), who indeed is in possession of the mythical tree and hands it to the Prince - albeit with a condition attached: if he presents the Princess with the tree and the Princess will truly fall in love with the Prince before sunset, only then will the little tree sing and ring. If not, the Prince will be transformed into a manky looking bear. Confident that he will win the Princess’ heart, he’s gutted when instead, she sneers at him and the ‘ugly’ looking tree… Sure enough, come sunset, the Prince transforms into a gruff bear but this time, he takes revenge by kidnapping the arrogant Princess and taking her to the dwarf’s realm. Here, she’s about to get a taste of her own medicine and a few lessons along the way she won’t forget in a hurry… With it’s fantastic and hugely surreal sets, supposedly in the big wide open but obviously a studio set, the equally surreal characters include a gigantic goldfish, a horse with antlers, a sky lit with stars and a full moon (obviously painted onto canvas) and rivers and ponds which turn to ice and snow. This is magical indeed! No wonder the tale of the Singing Ringing Tree is a firm favourite not just in its native Germany but also in the UK and the US! 

DISC 2 begins with RUMPELSTILTSKIN (DAS ZAUBERMÄNNCHEN) from 1960, directed by Christoph Engel and Erwin Anders. It’s loosely based upon the Brothers Grimm tale though here, it offers a distinctly ‘socialist’ message, namely that money and wealth won’t make you happy. Dogsbody Hans (Reinhard Michalke) is in the employ of his lazy boss, miller Kunz (Karl-Heinz Rothin). With no help from Kunz, Hans constantly finds himself at loggerheads with the local farmers, as he alone is not able to produce enough flour. Seeing how miller Kunz doesn’t earn enough money due to his own  laziness, he soon finds himself in trouble with the King (Nikolaus Paryla) for not being able to pay his taxes and what have you. When the King threatens the miller with eviction, Kunz, in an act of desperation, lies to the King’s treasurer (Bodo Mette) that his daughter Marie (Karin Lesch) is able to spin straw which then turns into gold. When Marie learns of her father’s bragging, she understandably reacts with anger but too late: the treasurer already told the King about the miller’s daughter and her unusual abilities.

The King orders Marie to spin entire bundles of straw into gold over the course of the night. If she fails, she will be thrown into prison and her father will lose the mill. Desperate and locked away in a chamber with her spinning wheel and countless bundles of straw, Marie awaits her fate when suddenly, out of the blue, a mysterious imp (Siegfried Seibt) appears and offers to spin the straw for her in exchange for whatever she is able to give him. Handing him her locket, the imp gets to work on the spinning wheel and sure enough, the next morning there are gold coins everywhere. The Kind is so impressed, he orders Marie to spin straw into gold the following night and miraculously, the imp appears again in exchange for Marie’s ring.

The King is now so delighted (not to mention greedy), he orders the protesting Marie to spin the straw for a third night with the promise to make her his Queen if she turns straw into gold one last time. Certain that the imp won’t appear again to help her out, the imp does appear but horror of all horrors, Marie has nothing left to give him in exchange. He makes her promise to give him her firstborn once she is Queen and she agrees. One year has passed and Marie lives a life of luxury while her father, now dressed in fine clothes and prancing about like a peacock, is lazier than ever. One day, the imp appears to take Marie’s firstborn with him, after all, a promise is a promise. But Queen Marie does not wish to part from her baby girl and offers the imp her jewels instead. The imp, however, is not interested in material wealth but gives Marie one last chance: he will return in three days time and if, by then, she’s guessed his unusual name, she is allowed to keep her baby… This is hugely entertaining and Siegfried Seibt is a riot as the imp, although unlike in the original fairytale and its variations, he’s not really evil but serves as a metaphor pointing out that all the riches in the world won’t make you a happy person and that it’s love that counts. Shame the little imp never made it to Woodstock! 

LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD (ROTKÄPPCHEN) from 1962, directed by Götz Friedrich, is perhaps the most straightforward and the most faithful adaptation of a Brothers Grimm fairytale. Once upon a time…there lived a little girl (Blanche Kommerell) together with her parents (Helga Raumer and Horst Knube) in a cosy little hut at the edge of a huge, dense forest. The little girl’s nickname, Little Red Riding Hood, came about because of the bright red cap she loves wearing wherever she goes. Her grandmother (Friedel Nowack), a frail old woman only with a (puppet) squirrel for company, lives on the other side of the forest and is looking forward to a visit from her granddaughter.

Back home, Little Red Riding Hood gets restless and although she has friends in some of the forest animals, such as a bunny and a clumsy bear (Ernst Georg-Schwill), other animals like the cunning fox (Harald Engelmann) and the evil and hungry wolf (Werner Dissel) plan on ambushing the girl when one day, she decides to visit grandmother after promising her mother to be extra cautious. Of course, we all know how the tale goes and what the big bad wolf does in order to get to Little Red Riding Hood… The animals are played by grown-ups wearing furry outfits (which must have been hot and sweaty) and matching facial masks/make-up. Only the bunny is played by a boy (Jochen Bley) who appears to be about ten years of age if that, and he does a particularly brilliant job in the way he moves about. That said, the actors portraying forest animals sporting furry outfits is about as surreal as it gets here.

Last but not least, DISC 3 offers THE DEVIL WITH THE THREE GOLDEN HAIRS (WER REISST DEN GLEICH VOR’M TEUFEL AUS ?) from 1977, directed by Egon Schlegel. Now, this really is an absolute hoot and about as surreal as it gets! It also has a fair bit of slapstick and boasts a devil who plays his part for laughs - how about that? Main character is Jakob (Hans-Joachim Frank), a blacksmith’s assistant who is as clumsy as can be, driving all his co-workers ‘round the bend with his clumsiness. However, he’s useful for something, namely being unafraid of the local tax collector (Wolfgang Greese) who regularly collects tax from the farmers, which is meant to be ‘protection money’ against bandits, even though there are no bandits in the area. Until one day, the farmers have enough and decide that if they must cough up protection money against apparent bandits which don’t exist, they may as well become bandits themselves! And when the King (Rolf Ludwig) and his servants turn up in person, after the tax collector had returned to the castle empty-handed, his Majesty gets pelted with stones. Alas, the farmers also have enough of the clumsy Jakob and tell him to get lost, but not before the King, permanently drunk on wine, notices the young lad, who doesn’t make a good impression on him either. Assuming he is a bandit, the King bestows the title of ‘royal postman’ upon Jakob and sends him to the castle with a sealed letter… in which it is written that Jakob is an impersonator who really is a thief and thus should be executed straight away.

Luckily, while en route, some of the farmers cum bandits intercept, read the letter and now draw up their own letter, which states that Jakob, upon his arrival at the castle, is to marry the King’s pretty daughter (Katrin Martin). Fuming over the letter, the King plans to sabotage the looming wedding by tasking Jacob with venturing into the devil’s lair and plucking three golden hairs from his horned head. That’s when the real fun kicks in because the devil (Dieter Franke), who is short-sighted, mistakes the intruder for his wife, which in turn provides Jakob with the opportunity of getting those three golden hairs… The devil’s lair is wonderfully trippy and psychedelic and looks like an elaborate stage set for an Iron Maiden or Alice Cooper show! And there’s a few twists towards the end as well. Great fun, and totally bonkers!

Each disc comes with additional bonus material including various audio options, audio commentaries, video essays, interviews, and various animated shorts from DEFA Studios.