Some time ago they released the first Trailer for Matteo Garrone‘s (probable) visual masterpiece Tale of Tales. It has no dialogue, it simply gives little moments from the film with no explanation as to their context, and none at all of the plot. The trailer took an already abnormal film and gave it the charm of a dialogue-less film like Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s The Holy Mountain (1973), which is less of a ‘feature film’ and more of a ‘moving storybook’. The trailer was a glimmer of light in an age of darkness for someone like myself who is increasingly deflated by the bombardment of sequels and blockbusters and the decline of quality cinema. They have now released a new trailer, this time with dialogue, and it confirms the assumption that Garrone’s niche film stays true to the time of the fairytales he is telling and disregards any concerns about fitting a market for today’s cinema going trends.

Tale of Tales is a cinematic retelling of three grotesque stories from a 17th century collection of fairytales by Giambattista Basile. After loosing her son, The Queen of Longtrellis (Salma Hayek) will do anything it takes to get a new one. Two mysterious sisters provoke the passion of the womanising King of Strongcliff (Vincent Cassel). The King of Highhills (Toby Jones) becomes obsessed with a giant flea whilst his daughter becomes obsessed with him finding her a husband. The film also features John C. Reilly as The King of Longtrellis and Stacy Martin (of Lars von Trier‘s Nymphomaniac).

It looks to be storytelling at its absolute best, and may just transcend the barrier between arthouse audiences and modern day cinema-goers. Tale of Tales is set to be released in UK theatres on June 17th. You can watch the first trailer here, and watch the new one below.

Salma Hayek as The Queen of Longtrellis in Tale of Tales

Vincent Cassel as The King of Strongcliff and Stacy Martin in Tale of Tales