This blog post examines why ‘The Brothers Grimm’, despite its typical fantasy adventure exterior, failed to generate fear and tension, focusing on narrative devices and character composition.
Introduction
In 2001, the immense popularity of Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings, which successively delivered highly polished fantasy films, led moviegoers to recognize that the fantasy genre had reached a mature stage. The robust narrative structures based on globally beloved source novels, coupled with the rapidly advancing computer graphics technology of the time, served as strong supporting elements for this perception.
However, at the same time, the occasional appearance of poorly executed fantasy films served to dampen audience expectations and enthusiasm. Among these, ‘The Brothers Grimm’ was a film that, despite production conditions that were by no means inferior to ‘Harry Potter’ or ‘The Lord of the Rings’, disappointed fantasy genre audiences due to its poorly crafted story.
What made this film particularly regrettable was that, despite relatively solid secondary box office elements like technical prowess and star casting, it lacked the fundamental completeness of its story. Consequently, it left an impression of being a house of cards—visually dazzling on the outside, but with its narrative foundation crumbling.
This article will first examine the fantasy genre as a whole, then explore why ‘The Brothers Grimm’ failed to convince in terms of narrative completeness.
2. My Personal Definition of Fantasy Adventure
When we encounter fantasy films or novels, what elements draw us in and make us enjoy them? Analyzing the fantasy adventure genre is largely a process of finding the answer to this very question. The primary reason most people enjoy fantasy adventures is the tension and excitement felt within the narrative. Audiences experience the uncertainty and danger that arise as the protagonist journeys to unfamiliar places, deriving the unique thrill characteristic of fantasy. So, where does this excitement truly stem from?
Fantasy fundamentally unfolds against the backdrop of events or places that could never occur in the real world we inhabit. These worlds defy explanation through rational thought or the logic of natural science, making prediction itself impossible within our cognitive scope. Consequently, we experience unfamiliar and unsettling emotions entirely distinct from our familiar daily lives. Fantasy adventure concretizes this unfamiliar feeling through the protagonist’s journey. Events unfold in strange places, leaving the audience unable to predict what will happen next and unable to feel confident about the situation. This inevitably creates unease, and this unease generates tension and interest—it is precisely at this point that we find fantasy enjoyable.
Several devices exist to evoke this sense of strangeness. The first is the unfamiliar setting. Unlike science fiction, fantasy adventure does not begin in an alien space from the outset. Most often, it starts in an everyday, familiar background for both the audience and the protagonist, gradually shifting into unfamiliar territory. During this process, we find ourselves in unfamiliar surroundings and experience the fear of not knowing what might happen there. However, this fear alone should not be unconditionally emphasized. The unfamiliar space must simultaneously contain elements that stimulate the protagonist’s curiosity, thereby motivating both the audience and the protagonist to delve deeper into that world.
The second device is the introduction of a being that becomes the object of fear. While any element in the unfamiliar space could potentially be a source of fear upon arrival, fantasy adventures typically introduce a being vastly more powerful than the protagonist. This entity wields overwhelming force and influence through transcendent powers like magic, rendering human opposition futile, and serves as a constant threat until the protagonist escapes the space.
In 「Harry Potter」 and 「The Lord of the Rings」, Voldemort and Sauron respectively serve as these objects of dread, functioning as a constant, latent terror throughout the protagonists’ adventures.
The journey to an unfamiliar place must never be accidental; it must be necessitated by an inevitable event that sets the story in motion. This event possesses the power to compel the protagonist to leave the real world, and a plot where the protagonist travels to unfamiliar spaces without any reason struggles to be convincing. For example, in Spirited Away, the reason the protagonist, Sen, enters the world of the gods’ hot springs is because she has a clear purpose: to restore her parents, who have been turned into pigs, to their original forms. Thus, the protagonist begins their adventure both through external circumstances and through their own deliberate choice.
Fantasy adventure is not merely a return narrative where the protagonist simply leaves on an adventure and then comes back. Fantasy unfolds around the protagonist’s journey to reclaim their lost desire within an unfamiliar space. This desire serves as the core motivation for the protagonist’s adventure and is typically set as a primal, fundamental element directly tied to life’s stability. The moment this desire is taken away, the protagonist is engulfed by anxiety and fear, inevitably forcing them to embark on a journey to reclaim it. Ultimately, the protagonist is forced to travel to unfamiliar lands, endure numerous trials and tribulations, reclaim the lost desire, and return to reality—a pattern that repeats. Within this structure, fantasy adventure transcends a simple adventure tale, achieving narrative completeness as a story that explores the human psyche and desires.
‘The Brothers Grimm’ Introduction
Narrative & Characters ― The Archetypal Hero Myth
‘The Brothers Grimm’ is set in 19th-century France and tells the story of two brothers, Will and Jake, who are ‘con artist exorcists’. These brothers are based on the setting of the Brothers Grimm, widely known as fairy tale writers. They are con artists who travel the country, earning money under the pretense of defeating monsters and demons they themselves have planned and created. The French government becomes aware of the Brothers Grimm’s nationwide scam and suspects that a bizarre incident occurring in one village is also something they have fabricated.
Consequently, the government orders the brothers that failure to resolve the case will cost them their lives, and sends them off to the magical forest of ‘Marbaden’. The incident unfolding there involves young girls disappearing without reason, and to survive, the Grimm brothers find themselves in a situation where they must rescue these girls. Ultimately, the brothers venture deep into the heart of the Marbaden forest, the epicenter of the mystery. By defeating the Mirror Queen, who resides in Rapunzel’s tower and is the root cause of the disappearances, they succeed in returning the vanished girls to their village.
The film’s narrative closely follows the plot of the hero myth, considered the precursor to fantasy adventure. It structures the story around the ‘departure–initiation–return’ process: starting from the world of everyday life, departing for a surreal realm, triumphing over a powerful adversary there, and then returning to the real world.
Initially forced to enter the surreal space merely to save his own life, he ultimately rescues the missing girls, brings benefit to the village, and returns to receive heroic acclaim—faithfully following the structure of a classic adventure tale.
Setting ― Marbaden Forest
The only location in this film where fantastical elements occur is Marbaden Forest. This forest also frequently appears as the setting for events in the fairy tales written by the Brothers Grimm. The world before entering this forest is depicted as a familiar, everyday space for the audience. However, the moment they set foot in this forest, bizarre events begin to unfold one after another, and they encounter abnormal beings like frogs or werewolves.
Furthermore, this space is also a place where the influence of an entity that always acts as an object of terror for the Brothers Grimm is absolutely exerted. This influence manifests in the form of abilities impossible for humans, namely superhuman strength or magic. In other words, the Marbaden Forest is a disconnected, self-contained space that does not exist in the real world. The protagonist’s true adventure begins the moment they enter this space, and only upon escaping it do they return to reality.
Return to Reality
Escaping this surreal space is only possible once the protagonist achieves their goal. If the adventure began to reclaim something taken by the surreal space, the return to reality also occurs only when that goal is fully achieved. If the protagonist adapts to the unfamiliar space and settles there, or fails to escape at all, the plot as a fantasy adventure cannot be completed.
As confirmed through the narrative earlier, the precursor to fantasy adventure can be seen as originating from the hero myth. A hero only receives recognition as such after fulfilling what others desire, and similarly, a fantasy adventure reaches its conclusion only when the protagonist completes their adventure and returns to the real world. This return is only fully realized when the protagonist has obtained what they themselves desired.
In ‘The Brothers Grimm’, the return to reality is achieved when the two brothers, Will and Jake, safely return the missing girls to their original village, thus fulfilling their purpose.
Problems with Genre Approach
Absence of the Object of Fear
‘The Brothers Grimm’ centers its narrative on adventures within a surreal space. Through the Brothers Grimm’s process of solving bizarre events occurring in the forest of Marbaden, we can observe the adventure structure presented by this work. To draw the protagonist into the adventure’s setting, a device to lure the character is essential. In adventure tales, the primary lure driving the protagonist into adventure is precisely the need to solve a problem. As mentioned earlier, fantasy fundamentally relies on narratives where characters embark on adventures to reclaim lost desires, necessitating the inevitable occurrence of an event that stimulates the character’s desire.
In ‘The Brothers Grimm’, the brothers’ motivation to embark on their adventure lies in solving an event that holds their lives as collateral. They find themselves in an inescapable situation: if they fail to enter the Marbaden Forest and rescue the missing children, they will lose their lives. To regain their previous stable life, one where their lives were not in peril, they set out on their adventure.
In this respect, the motivation for the adventure itself is relatively clearly established.
However, the reason the resolution of the incident fails to create tension for the audience is that the powerful object of fear does not function properly. The reason Frodo feels constant tension during his adventure in The Lord of the Rings is because he is confronting an overwhelmingly powerful object of fear: Sauron. The object of fear positioned as the protagonist’s adversary is always established as an entity incomparably more powerful than the protagonist. But in ‘The Brothers Grimm’, this object of fear is effectively absent. While the Mirror Queen displays a distinct presence within the film, her actual form upon confrontation feels almost hollow.
Despite possessing seemingly unbeatable magic and power, the ‘Mirror Queen’ is fundamentally a hybrid entity, a fusion of Rapunzel from the Brothers Grimm fairy tale ‘Rapunzel’ and the princess from ‘Sleeping Beauty’. While the image of the witch from “Snow White” is partially layered onto her, this has little impact on her characterization beyond the shared pursuit of beauty and the mirror prop.
The root of fear stems from uncertainty and unfamiliarity. We feel fear toward an object precisely because we do not know it. However, the moment we recognize the identity of the object, that fear rapidly diminishes. In ‘The Brothers Grimm’, a fundamental problem arises because the entity that captivated the audience in fear without their awareness is, in fact, a character we already know well. The existence of ‘Rapunzel’ functions less as an object of fear and more as a sudden shift from the tension the audience felt to a sense of relief.
Who is Rapunzel? She is the beautiful, fragile woman imprisoned in a narrow tower, appearing in the Brothers Grimm’s “Rapunzel.” Moreover, Rapunzel is portrayed not as an independent or courageous character, but as one perpetually dependent on others. The fear such a character can instill in the audience has clear limitations. Similarly, “Sleeping Beauty” is also imprinted with a passive and fragile image. Even if such fragile beings appear wearing the guise of the witch from “Snow White,” they are unlikely to be easily recognized as objects of fear by the audience. A scene that starkly illustrates this is when the Mirror Queen, despite the Brothers Grimm attempting to hinder her, cannot inflict any physical harm upon them.
The Subject’s Perspective
Todorov, who attempted a systematic theorization of the fantastic, proposed ‘hesitation’ as its core concept. This ‘hesitation’ refers to the ambiguous state of perception experienced when humans, accustomed only to natural laws, encounter events possessing supernatural aspects. Examining the conditions he presented for the fantastic reveals the following: First, the text must lead the reader to perceive the world inhabited by the characters as the real human world, while causing them to hesitate between naturalistic and supernatural explanations for the events that occur. Second, the characters themselves must experience this hesitation, and the reader identifies with them. This hesitation is represented within the text and functions as one of the work’s major themes.
Third, the reader adopts a specific attitude toward the text, rejecting poetic or allegorical interpretations.
According to Todorov, we enjoy fantasy because we project ourselves onto characters in films or literature, identifying with and experiencing the sensation of directly experiencing surreal spaces and times ourselves. However, in ‘The Brothers Grimm’, the protagonists’ situation diverges from the audience’s perspective. This is because, while the audience’s gaze focuses on the direct fears and hardships the Brothers Grimm endure during their adventures, the Brothers Grimm themselves do not fully experience such fears.
The Brothers Grimm are positioned where they need not feel direct fear from the Mirror Queen. The Mirror Queen’s obsession is not directed at them personally; she is solely concerned with preserving her own beauty and maintaining the forest’s undisturbed state. Consequently, the two brothers remain in a position where they are unlikely to suffer direct harm from the Mirror Queen. Ultimately, the entity controlling the Brothers Grimm’s lives is the French government. However, their conflict with this government fails to exert a continuous influence throughout the adventure. Consequently, the audience’s perspective and the narrative’s focus gradually diverge.
A contrasting example is The Lord of the Rings. The protagonist Frodo becomes a target for Sauron’s attacks simply by possessing the One Ring, and he continues his adventure constantly carrying the latent fear of not knowing when he might be attacked. Therefore, the audience naturally identifies with Frodo’s perspective and emotions, maintaining tension throughout the adventure.
Conclusion
The key element that makes genre films enjoyable for audiences lies in creating dramatic tension. And the most representative device fantasy films use to create this tension is adventure. Here, adventure is not limited to the meaning of simple movement or travel; it includes the process of the protagonist reclaiming their stolen desires. The protagonist appearing in fantasy adventures perceives the world and order surrounding them as their own possession, so they cannot accept situations where others destroy or invade it. This directly leads to a rejection of others who threaten their stability.
For this reason, no matter how powerful the adversary, the protagonist must embark on the adventure to reclaim what was taken. However, since the adversary is often supernatural and defies rational prediction, the protagonist naturally feels fear and dread. When the audience shares these emotions from the protagonist’s perspective, the unique dramatic tension of fantasy adventure is finally established.
‘The Brothers Grimm’, despite outwardly possessing the structure of a typical fantasy adventure, failed to effectively build these devices and thus failed to create dramatic tension. Throughout the work, fairy tale characters were placed here and there to provide fresh material, but these characters instead acted as elements hindering the story’s progression. The Little Red Riding Hood, Hansel and Gretel, and the Enchanted Forest, familiar since childhood, no longer function as spaces of terror for adult audiences. Even Rapunzel, presented as an object of fear, remains in the audience’s memory as an overly virtuous being.
In the fantasy genre, which relies on unfamiliar spaces and objects to generate fear, the appearance of already familiar entities prevents the space from being perceived as strange. Consequently, the moment an unknown object appears, the audience’s tension quickly dissipates, failing to sustain interest in the story even at the climax, which should be the narrative’s core.
The reason ‘The Brothers Grimm’ failed to resonate with audiences as a genre film lies less in insufficient research into the narrative itself and more in a lack of understanding of the individual devices that compose the narrative. Failing to fully grasp the characteristics and functions of the story’s structural components meant that even the completed narrative couldn’t achieve a convincing conclusion. To prevent future fantasy adventure productions from repeating the same mistakes as ‘The Brothers Grimm’, research into the genre must go beyond merely the narrative level. It must simultaneously involve a deep understanding and analysis of the individual devices contained within it.
