From the film's beginning moments, its striking visuals cast an immediate spell on the viewer. Kaplan, an indie director whose nearly three-decade career consists of only a handful of short film adaptations of classic fairy tales, has an undeniably arresting visual sense; his Little Red Riding Hood is shot in gorgeous black-and-white with pristine lighting and exaggerated character movements and set design clearly inspired by the likes of F.W. Murnau and Robert Wiene. The film is a stunning visual achievement.
Story-wise, the short is at least morbidly fascinating, if for no other reason than it gives the viewer a disturbing glimpse into Kaplan's filmic obsessions, which heavily favor disturbing sexual pairings, grotesque predators, and savvy young nymphettes eager to experiment. In this version of Riding Hood, Christina Ricci -- then a 16-year-old actress coming off breakout roles in The Addams Family films and Casper -- plays the title character, who wanders through the forest to visit her grandmother, but instead squares off against The Wolf, who devours Grandma and means to do the same with Red. Of course, this is not the same kid-friendly fairy tale most of us are used to -- The Wolf is a balletic performance artist (played with exaggerated grace by professional dancer Timour Bourtasenkov) who wants to have his way with young Red in her grandmother's bed, and Red herself is a smart teenager with budding sexuality who knows what The Wolf wants and chooses to play along with his game. The story provides an uneasy mix of female empowerment and disturbing pedophilia; Red is knowing enough to play The Wolf's game, yet still she is being pursued by a unsavory marauder looking to have his way with her.
The film unfolds without dialogue, with occasional narration thrown in to move the story through broad storytelling strokes. Performance is not really the key element of a film like this, which plays like a cross between an artistic exercise and a deep-seeded need to explore the ambiguous sexual implications of a classic fairy tale. Ricci does what she needs to do in the central role -- she looks young and beautiful in the black-and-white cinematography, and she uses her eyes to convey a wide range of impressive emotions. Bourtasenkov prances through the forest with ease, and he seems at home in a role that allows him to play to the back row, as he might in a stage performance.
Little Red Riding Hood is a disturbing curiosity, but even a film this short suffers from the conflicting ambitions of its creator. Kaplan is clearly talented as a visual artist, and is clearly fascinated with stories with creepy sexual implications, but there are passages that veer from the sensual and pass over the satirical and land squarely in broad spoof. How else can one interpret the absurdist moments when, in an attempt to evade The Wolf's advances, Red tells him she has to 'make caca,' and after several minutes of waiting The Wolf calls out, 'are you pinching off a big loaf?' Spoken in the sophisticated dialect of narrator Quentin Crisp, such moments are good for offbeat laughs but serve as more of odd distractions than natural extensions of this story.
The film is interesting and nice to look at, to be sure, but its short length undercuts its potential to fully explore the rabbit hole of sexual undercurrents. As a result, it is just disconcerting and not completely powerful. The newly-released 'Director's Cut' DVD comes packaged with Kaplan's two earlier, less accomplished fairy tale adaptations, Little Suck-a-Thumb, which could easily be interpreted as a film about masturbation and homosexuality, and The Frog King, in which a much more innocent young girl is pursued by a nasty looking frog puppet who wants to get her 'in BED!!' As a film collection, the DVD serves more as a glimpse into its director's mind than an engrossing film experience.
