There’s a startlingly disturbing moment in Norwegian filmmaker Emilie Blichfeldt’s brilliantly inverted fairy/folk tale, The Ugly Stepsister (orig. Den stygge stesøsteren), where the unfortunate title character, Elvira (Lea Myren), the dutiful daughter of a penniless social climber, undergoes an 18th century version of a rhinoplasty (nasal reconstruction) without an anesthetic of any kind. As the aptly named Dr. Esthétique (Adam Lundgren), a sadistic surgeon, takes hammer and wedge to Elvira’s presumably imperfect nose, each tap echoes loudly on the soundtrack, followed by Elvira’s sharp cry of physical pain, emotional agony, and mental anguish. Following the familiar parameters of narrative cinema, the audience and Elvira, however briefly, are united in her tortured experience. Facing her mother Rebekka's (Ane Dahl Torp) impossible expectations, Elvira will go...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...