Review of A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) by Gregeporter — 30 Aug 2015

Bottom line: A Tale of Two Sisters is wonderfully chilling and offers more than a creepy premise which makes it a powerful cinematic experience.

The movie opens to a sterile mental hospital examination room. A girl sits in a chair opposite a doctor. He asks several questions which she ignores. He shows her a picture of her family. He asks, “What happened that day?” She raises her head and looks out the window. The camera fades to a shot looking out the back passenger window of a car as it drives through the forest, over a bridge and along a lake. Peacefully sad guitar/violin music plays as the car approaches an imposing house.

The opening shots juxtapose the ominous house with peaceful music. The intersection of scary images and not scary music isn’t new, Insidious, for example, plays Tiny Tim’s “Tiptoe Though the Tulips” but I don’t think this is what A Tale of Two Sisters is attempting. In some movies, we know that what we are watching a retelling of an event. The movie then becomes a something like a campfire ghost story. A Tale of Two Sisters presents the events after the fact but as a ‘story’ instead of a ‘ghost story’.

I have said time and time again that I hate horror movies. Even if they are of poor quality, I can never sleep after watching them. At the same time, I loved A Tale of Two Sisters. I loved it so much it makes me rethink my relationship with horror. I was genuinely scared during portions of the movie and yet, I slept soundly that night. As I write this, I smile because it was such a fun experience. I will go into more detail below but I hesitate to tell you much more because I did have fun trying to anticipate the story. Let us discuss a scene, the stepmother’s introduction, in the hopes of describing why A Tale of Two Sisters is so brilliant.

The two sisters, holding hands, timidly enter the large, silent, dimly lit house. Cutting the silence, we hear the stepmother saying, “Welcome home!” The camera cuts to a long shot of a long, dark hallway. The stepmother approaches the still camera. She speaks quickly and walks so smoothly it looks like she is floating instead of walking. The suddenness of her presence makes you want to recoil but the still camera prevents the reaction. Standing firm, the sensation of helplessness prolongs until we cut to her point of view. The two girls watch her (looking into the camera) and tense up. The collision of her swiftness and the previous still camera prolongs the sense of lack of control because even though we are moving we are not in control. Sure, we are never in control of the camera but we don’t usually realize it.

A Tale of Two Sisters is on top of its game. The music, cinematography and acting harmonize to make a complete experience that I highly recommend. The quality of the movie, rather than cheap scares, leaves a lasting impression. I’ve heard people liken horror movies to a roller coaster ride. The emphasis of the analogy is that horror movies thrive on cheap thrills and that the audience doesn’t anticipate what is happening next. I disagree with the analogy but let’s expand it a little. A roller coaster takes you for a ride but it brings you back to where you started. A typical horror movie, for me, is like driving off-road through the woods. It is bumpy and maybe exciting but when all is said and done, the driver (the movie) leaves you in the scary woods alone. I leave the theater with nightmares and paranoia. A Tale of Two Sisters is actually like a roller coaster ride because it takes you into a frightening situation but brings you back; the movie positions itself and the audience together in a discussion that is more complex than ‘a murdered child-ghost wants revenge.’ I’ve seen it twice so far and look forward to seeing it again.