Sacred witches: We have known Robert Zemeckis more inspired (review)

Not released in cinemas in France, Sacréeswitches arrives on TF1 this evening. But late.

When Wonka a hit in theaters, TF1 is programming a special Roald Dahl evening. First of all with the free adaptation of Charlie and the chocolate factory (2005), by Tim Burton, at 9:10 p.m., then with Holy witches (2020), by Robert Zemeckis, at 11:10 p.m. It’s a shame that these two films based on the work of the British writer are not his most successful adaptations…

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory: an adaptation long in the making for Tim Burton

Without a revolution to lead, Zemeckis, the mad inventor of Hollywood, the virtuoso of the never-seen before, executes this adaptation of one of Roald Dahl’s great classics on autopilot. We knew him more inspired.

Lately Robert Zemeckis took the time to treat itself to a mega flop: a fake Oscar drama with Steve Carell, a very expensive and very high-tech project, highly testamentary and completely suicidal. Welcome in Marwen was released in 2018, and it was about a depressed artist who dreamed of being the boss of a gang of sexy dolls. A shattered, twisted, ribald but sublime self-portrait: deliberately designed for posterity. This film had to be made before leaving the stage, and too bad if no one liked it. While waiting for rehabilitation, all that remained for its author was retirement or forgiveness. By realizing Sacre Witches, he ultimately chose both. It is both a grandpa cake film and an execution without too many excesses with respect to the specifications – the ones imposed on you when you agree to adapt a best-seller by Roald Dahl with which three generations of spectators have grown up. It’s about a young grieving boy who comes face to face with a gathering of witches, all very united in their hatred of those under 10 years old. The most attentive will notice that this is the second time in a row that the filmmaker has depicted man-children struggling with a group of strong women who will reveal him to himself, and it is difficult to see this as a simple coincidence.

Welcome to Marwen: a little Zemeckis (Review)

POETIC PRINCIPLE. Beyond any psychological drift, Sacred Witches is above all a film for children directed by an old man who has spent his career wanting to scare them (notably with his series THE Tales from the Crypt)and which will soon follow up with a Pinocchio for Disney. It’s almost an event, because the filmmaker had abandoned this register since 2004 and The Express Pole where he reinvented himself as a prophet of motion capture and as a pioneer of the cinema of the future. We saw a pre-teen who was a little turned off and plagued by doubt about “the magic of Christmas”. The idea was to tell the story of his reconnection to reality through a phantasmagorical creature, in this case Santa Claus. Sacred Witches is built on this same poetic principle. This time we follow a little boy suddenly plunged into darkness and muteness after the death of his parents in a car accident (sublime static and virtuoso sequence shot that one would think came from a great Shyamalan). What follows is a therapy full of tubes 60s carried out in his grandmother’s house where Zemeckis exhibits a very first degree melodious sensitivity, which we did not know about him. This first act is the best the film has to offer, especially as it concludes with the arrival of evil creatures who suddenly shift the learning story towards allegory, horror and even satire policy. At the moment when the witches initiate a big sabbath in the village hall of a palace and the young hero is transformed into a mouse, the film is even on the verge of overheating, not far from pure horror and small finger aimed at the industry. He immediately changes his mind and chooses to play the cartoon film card: it will be a long chase on a reduced scale.

EXPERTISE. The problem is that this time, Zemeckis has no visual revolution to lead (it is his most technically weak film in a very long time) and for a filmmaker who has always thrived on the never-seen, it is necessarily a question of ‘a major problem, suddenly for nothing. In fact, the roller coaster coughs and reveals that its author can only put himself at the service of excess, of the unheard of, of the captivating. Ask him to reinvent a century-old methodology and he will go into battle with a gun in his hand. Suggest that he stick to his know-how alone and you will find him as helpless as a little boy facing a pretty witch.

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