PAN's LABYRINTH
Dec. 19th, 2006 02:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sharplittleteethLast night I saw a preview screening of the new Guillermo del Toro film, Pan's Labyrinth.
Spain, 1944. A young girl, Ofelia, travels with her pregnant mother to an old mill in the country, where they will be living with her new step-father. Ofelia's mother is seriously ill. Her step-father, Captain Vidal, is a Fascist hunting down the last of the communist rebels that are hiding in the forest. Ofelia copes with this frightening situation by retreating into her books of fairytales.
Until one night she is lead into the labyrinth near the mill. At its heart, she meets an ancient faun, who tells her she is the lost princess of the underground kingdom. But before she can return, she must first complete three tasks.
Meanwhile, her step-father the Captain ruthlessly hunts down the resistance.
This is a beautiful film. But it is also brutal and bloody. Despite all the fairytale creatures, this film is more Ken Loach than Jim Henson. Horrible things happen to innocent people. There is a *lot* of violence, never gratutious, but very very explicit. Think of it as a Spanish Civil War film with a fantasty undertone, rather than the other way around.
Not that the fantasy elements are peripheral. Ofelia's tasks overlap with the real horrors of the war, blurring the line between reality and fairytale. And the ancient faun, the underground world, the monsters that Ofelia meets - they all look amazing. Even more so, when you learn the film was only made on a budget of $15 million.
Critics have been hailing this film as a masterpiece. I'm weary of killing it with hype. But it's a great film, dark and beautiful, tender and violent.
Just don't take your kids.
Spain, 1944. A young girl, Ofelia, travels with her pregnant mother to an old mill in the country, where they will be living with her new step-father. Ofelia's mother is seriously ill. Her step-father, Captain Vidal, is a Fascist hunting down the last of the communist rebels that are hiding in the forest. Ofelia copes with this frightening situation by retreating into her books of fairytales.
Until one night she is lead into the labyrinth near the mill. At its heart, she meets an ancient faun, who tells her she is the lost princess of the underground kingdom. But before she can return, she must first complete three tasks.
Meanwhile, her step-father the Captain ruthlessly hunts down the resistance.
This is a beautiful film. But it is also brutal and bloody. Despite all the fairytale creatures, this film is more Ken Loach than Jim Henson. Horrible things happen to innocent people. There is a *lot* of violence, never gratutious, but very very explicit. Think of it as a Spanish Civil War film with a fantasty undertone, rather than the other way around.
Not that the fantasy elements are peripheral. Ofelia's tasks overlap with the real horrors of the war, blurring the line between reality and fairytale. And the ancient faun, the underground world, the monsters that Ofelia meets - they all look amazing. Even more so, when you learn the film was only made on a budget of $15 million.
Critics have been hailing this film as a masterpiece. I'm weary of killing it with hype. But it's a great film, dark and beautiful, tender and violent.
Just don't take your kids.
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no subject
Date: 2006-12-19 11:34 pm (UTC)I thought the isolated setting detracted from the overall sense of a country in conflict, and the captain was so two-dimensionally evil that he almost seemed part of the faerie rather than the real world. Also, I felt that there was too much little stuff - a leg wound here, a shaving scene or a grape there - going on in the film to get a really good smooth story told. It got a bit blurry in a lot of directions.
Good film, but I don't think it'll become a classic.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-20 12:33 am (UTC)I agree about the Captain. I would have loved for him to be charming at the start, to show us the man that Ofelia's mother married. Presumably del Toro was trying to take him in the other direction - start him off as a monster, then slowly reveal his humanity.