Hansel and Gretel is such an excellent tale that I'm sad to see the new film inspired by the German folk-tale has the names of the title reversed. I haven't looked at the trailer for the new film and I don't know what angle they are going to work in the picture, so I don't want to speculate needlessly. However, I can guess, but I will restrain my worse impulses.
The original tale is well known, but one thing that the reversal brought to mind was the role of love in that story. Most modern versions sanitize it for consumption, a process begun by the Grimm Brothers themselves. There is an absolutely astonishing website maintained by Professor D. L. Ashliman, Emeritus Professor of German at the University of Pittsburgh, which continues to maintain his amazing online collection of folk-tales, including a comparative version of the beloved Grimm tale here that places the 1812 edition (in English translation) side by side with the final version to be published under the auspices of the Grimms. The original 1812 version has the Mother the source of suffering, later she will be transformed into a step-mother. A change that seems more successful and at least more comfortable. The tale may have originated in ancient times or in one of the periods of famine in German medieval history. In any case, the tale is one of several that combines various elements, abandoned children, children outsmarting their parents, a cannibalistic witch, and burning your enemy in their own oven. All good stuff as far as I'm concerned. The tale has been pegged as disturbing, but my sister and I eat it up as a child. Watching my own two children grow up together, they love it as well, and there is something of brotherly and sisterly love in it that needs to be emphasized.
Hansel upon hearing his father and step-mother discuss their plans to abandon their children, takes the initiative to preserve himself and his sister from deceit, betrayal, and sure death. He cleverly comes up with a means of finding his way home, stones in the first attempt, and bread-crumbs in the second, when his ability to gather stones is thwarted by the step-mother. Hansel, is both intelligent and resourceful, but he still a child. His plans fail because of his limited perspective, but they are born out of bravery and a love for his sister. His bravery and intelligence are still susceptible to human failings, and as they are weakened by lack of food and wandering in the forest the witch's house at first seems a godsend. But anything that is so easy, and so easily obtained is always a warning to the prudent. The witch's kindness quickly turns into a dangerous situation as she reveals her true nature. Gretel now becomes the more resourceful and her love and gratitude for her brother and his sacrifice motivate her as they together find an expedient to preserve Hansel in the face of the witch's desire to fatten him up and eat him. There is an understanding that in the out-world Hansel has the typical traits of male bravery and intelligence, but they are not enough, likewise, Gretel embraces the interior hearth centered world to take center stage and hoists the witch on her own petard. Deception is turned against the witch as the means of salvation in this horrific scenario.
A mutual interlocking set of skills and loves, centered around the natural biological and evolutionary traits of the male and female push against the child-like limitations of body and mind and yet are triumphant because they are grounded in love and in virtue. The final demise of the witch and the death or disappearance of the step-mother leads us to believe they are more than coincidental, although the fullest implication is the destruction of children, their neglect, and their abandonment are a form of cannibalization. The female that would sacrifice her child for herself is a monster. Instead, let us have the love that risks and sacrifices in the face of destruction for those we love and for the stranger.
