Indie Roundup: Pablo Berger’s strange silent fairy tale ‘Blancanieves’

As movies are increasingly going digital, from production to projection, we’re seeing a wave of nostalgia for the physical medium of film. Last year, a French silent movie, “The Artist,” vied for the Best Picture Oscar with “Hugo,” a drama about filmmaking pioneer George Méliès. This year saw the release of Miguel Gomes’s “Tabu,” a festival fave coming from Portugal that was shot in part with 16 mm cameras without sync sound. And coming out this month is”Blancanieves,” a silent movie from Spain. Like “The Artist,” this movie is a gorgeously shot homage to early cinema complete with black-and-white photography, iris shoots, and intertitles. Unlike “The Artist,” which is so ingratiating that it becomes irritating, “Blancanieves” is a strange, dark work that doesn’t quite have a fairy-tale ending.