Courtesy of Primrose Productions

Lotte Reiniger's Hansel and Gretel varies slightly from the Brothers Grimm original, particularly at the end. She herself would probably have loved to adhere to the original and would have had the witch burn in the oven, but the producers, having emigrated from Germany, regarded this as a taboo so shortly after the Holocaust, even for a silhouette film. Symbolised by the witches' cane, evil is destroyed, which can be regarded as an unambiguous symbol - by no means an accident on the part of Lotte Reiniger.

Christel Strobel

*This film is included in the BFI DVD compilation Lotte Reiniger: The Fairy Tale Films.

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