This is a bizarre film. It’s obviously based on the Grimm brothers fairytale, but it has very little to do with it. There’s no evil parents leaving them in the forest, no trail of breadcrumbs, no gingerbread house, no near-sighted witch. Instead it is a very, very slow coming-of-age story focusing on Gretel with atmospheric dread rather than intense horror as its main selling point. And chess, of course.
In this version of the story, the witch is trying to convince Gretel to join the dark side. But she naturally can’t join unless she can play chess reasonably well, so she has her spar against Hansel.1
Reconstructing the position was nefariously hampered by the fact that there’s a a broad rim around the board on which some captures pieces were put. But I’m onto this scheme and am, despite it, relatively confident about this position:2
Clearly, Gretel and Hansel have already joined the dark side. Or perhaps it’s the witch’s maleficent influence manifesting itself on the board. It’s a mystery how white’s king’s rook got captured, but that’s perhaps the most normal thing about the position. How on Earth did the queens get into this Mexican stand-off?3 Is it a symbol for the struggle between Gretel and the witch? Or perhaps between Gretel’s good and bad side?
This is the point where Hansel proffers us his queen, as can be seen in the picture above. All in all; this is unbelievable stupid, so I’m guessing it really is symbolic for something.
Realism: 1/5 It pretty much impossible to come up with a more ridiculous position that’s still legal.
Probable winner: Black is currently a rook up. If it’s white to move, b3 looks like it would net him a lot of material, but black can just answer Bxb3, perhaps after throwing in a rather annoying Ng4+.
1. [Possibly, she even has her Delhaize against him.] ↩
2. [The reconstruction was virtuously helped by this diagram editor.] ↩
3. [Given this movie’s pace, the queens are perhaps too slow to actually be attacking each other.] ↩