In this new animated adaptation, Guillermo Del Toro takes the much-loved episodic tale for children and fashions a more coherent narrative with a deeper emotional anchor. He makes the story his own, bringing to the fore his perennial themes of death and loss, the Underworld, and the shadow of fascism. The film is a triumph: […]

Stories of kids with superpowers don’t appeal to me. That’s why I was slow to watch Eskil Vogt’s ‘The Innocents,’ despite the pedigree shown in his other work—he wrote all of Joachim von Trier’s films, proving himself consistently sharp, sophisticated, and insightful. I needn’t have worried. He brings the same sly sophistication to bear on […]

Aesop’s ‘The Sleeping Dog and the Wolf‘ is a simple, straightforward tale arguing you should seize what’s in front of you, not wait on the promise of something better. A sleeping dog is attacked by a wolf. It saves itself by its wits, convincing the wolf it would get a better meal in a few […]

THE LION IN LOVE Aesop’s ‘Lion in Love’ warns of the dangers of giving too much of ourselves for love, or for a love that does not appear to be requited. The scenario is a curious one: a lion falls in love with a girl and approached the father to ask permission to court his […]

A Daw with a String At’s Foot A jackdaw is caught and kept as a child’s pet escapes, but dies when the string still attached to his foot gets caught on the branch of a tree. A pitiful tale with an objectionable moral: stick with what you’ve got even if it be degrading servitude—you may […]

A jackdaw features as protagonist in five or six of Aesop’s fables. He gets into the same sort of problems every time and I have become quite fond of him. He’s a comic everyman, afigure ruled by appetite and envy, wanting to be something he is not, and failing, an emblem of all-too-human flaws. As […]