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Jul. 24th, 2013 06:43 pmFinally watching Django Unchained, I was pretty excited to discover that the whole thing hinges on a myth/legend that I studied last year! That's cool, most things German are exciting to me, and I particularly liked that literature course.
Unfortunately I was not at all surprised that they "missed out" two really key elements from that myth.
Firstly, Brunhilde is described as a "princess" who has been locked away on a fiery mountain by the god Wotan. What is left out is the fact that she's a warrior princess, or rather, a Valkyrie, and that Wotan's reason for locking her up is that she's acted according to her own judgement instead of following his orders. The Brunhilde of the Germanic myth is a renowned warrior punished for her agency. The Brunhilde of the movie is just another damsel in distress.
Secondly, the story of how Siegfried reaches Brunhilde is mostly well told but slightly muddled. It's not as clear as it should be that the reason why he makes it past the dragon, up the mountain and through the fire is because he fears nothing, and it is especially not made clear that in finding Brunhilde, he loses that "superpower" because now he is afraid of losing her! Django certainly wasn't meant to have lost his power; indeed I would argue that having a wife and the hope of finding her is his superpower, or at least his driving force.
Another example of convenient cherry-picking. Not surprising, but disappointing.
Unfortunately I was not at all surprised that they "missed out" two really key elements from that myth.
Firstly, Brunhilde is described as a "princess" who has been locked away on a fiery mountain by the god Wotan. What is left out is the fact that she's a warrior princess, or rather, a Valkyrie, and that Wotan's reason for locking her up is that she's acted according to her own judgement instead of following his orders. The Brunhilde of the Germanic myth is a renowned warrior punished for her agency. The Brunhilde of the movie is just another damsel in distress.
Secondly, the story of how Siegfried reaches Brunhilde is mostly well told but slightly muddled. It's not as clear as it should be that the reason why he makes it past the dragon, up the mountain and through the fire is because he fears nothing, and it is especially not made clear that in finding Brunhilde, he loses that "superpower" because now he is afraid of losing her! Django certainly wasn't meant to have lost his power; indeed I would argue that having a wife and the hope of finding her is his superpower, or at least his driving force.
Another example of convenient cherry-picking. Not surprising, but disappointing.
