Dragonfire
Director Juan Carlos Fresnadillo explains how Damsel flips the fairy tale genre upside down
ASK SOMEONE TO CITE A favourite fairy tale these days, and most people immediately think of a Disney-fied version of a classic like Cinderella
– but when that story was first published in France in the 17th century, it was rather different. Before they evolved, spreading around the globe, these cultural cautionary tales were often sexual, violent and very weird.
We have the Brothers Grimm to blame for sanitising many fairy tales to make them more digestible for children; they’re also often sexist, with inert princesses being saved by heroic princes. However, Netflix’s Damsel, executiveproduced by and starring Stranger Things’ Millie Bobby Brown as Princess Elodie, is a refreshing return to fairy tales rife with dark themes, violence and human behaviour that’s worse than anything seen from monsters.
Directed by Juan Carlos Fresnadillo (28 Weeks Later) from an original story by Dan Mazeau (Wrath Of The Titans), Damsel takes all of the typical tropes inherent to today’s princess-centric fairy tales – glorious castles, lush costumes, charming suitors and happilyever-afters – and remixes them into a story told from the female point of view, one which inverts all expectations.
“Damsel is a full revision of fairy tales,” Fresnadillo tells Red Alert. “That was something that I felt was so attractive, especially because it introduces a very modern and contemporary way, with new values in these kinds of stories.”
In an ancient time of magic, Elodie (Brown) is the eldest daughter in a depressed country, low on food and resources. Desperate to avoid his people starving to death, the King (Ray Winstone) and his new wife, Lady Bayford (Angela Bassett), heed the call of a distant land where Queen Isabelle (Robin Wright) is ready to provide a generous dowry in exchange for a princess to marry her son, Prince Henry (Nick Robinson).
Less than pleased about this but loyal to her people, Elodie agrees and departs with her
We needed an actress that has the craft for delivering something that is really tricky
family, including her beloved little sister Floria (Brooke Carter), to wed the Prince, then stay and rule. The sparkling kingdom initially bewitches everyone, but the secret residing in the local mountain will upend Elodie’s entire worldview. What follows sends Elodie on a journey to discover her potential as she battles for her life.
It’s a character that required the emotional skillsets which Brown has shown in spades playing Eleven for four seasons. “We needed an actress that has the craft for delivering something that is really, really tricky and difficult in this revision, which is the survival journey,” Fresnadillo explains.
“At the end of the day, this movie is about a girl who becomes a woman,” he continues. “Millie is in that moment of her life where she’s experiencing that transformation. She was really good at putting in the character probably many things that she’s going through now.
“Then she takes you into that journey and makes you feel what she’s experiencing. Only great actors are capable of dragging you in, and making you feel that you’re with them, suffering, sweating, fighting. She’s fantastic. We were very lucky to have her because she’s not only capable to do that kind of physical part, but she’s really sensible about the nuances and the subtle details in the story too.”
The director extends his praise to the rest of the cast, including Bassett, whom he says reinvents the traditional “evil stepmother” into someone with a good cause, as she is the first to see the “shadows of this kingdom” and has great concern for Elodie.
“Damsel embraces the fact that women are supportive of women,” says Fresnadillo. “It’s a unique take, and in order to do that, you need the complicity of all [the actors]. They understood really well the compassion, because at the end of the day, there is no story if you don’t have an emotional journey.”
That also applies to the dragon teased in the trailer as Elodie’s antagonist, which the director says is a fully-realised character that has its own arc, one which dovetails with the film’s themes of compassion and mercy.
When it comes to the dragon’s design, on which Fresnadillo collaborated with production designer Patrick Tatopoulos (Underworld), he say they looked back on the pantheon of dragons in the history of cinema.
“The dragon is a legendary figure, and you want to deliver something really matching with this new [story] evolution,” he says. “When you’re designing fantasy stories, you ask, ‘What is the emotion that [ties] the whole thing together?‘ In a very emotional way, this is a family drama, and is also a family drama for the dragon.”
Damsel is on Netflix from 8 March.