Frustrated rock chick, I console myself with reviews of books and films as well as music.
Frustrated rock chick, I console myself with reviews of books and films as well as music.
Member since:24.08.2007
Reviews:39
Members who trust:47
~~~Prelude~~~ Pan's Labyrinth is a beautiful film: dark and at times terrifying. It mixes folklore and fantasy with the brutal reality of Fascist oppression post the Spanish Civil War. Centred on a young girl who finds a dark refuge from her surroundings in a fairy world whose monsters are not so unlike those from whom she is hiding. The film won Mexican film maker Guillermo del Toro three awards at the Golden Globes.
~~~Plot~~~ A young girl and her pregnant mother move to a rural military camp to join her stepfather who is captain there, working to overcome republican guerrillas. She clutches her fairy tale books close to her, despite her mother's gentle suggestion that she is now getting a little too old for them. In the grounds of the mill where the camp has been set up there is a labyrinth, which captures her imagination and where she will enter a world where she is has to undertake three tasks, set by a faun, to pass through the portal that he guards into the underworld where she is long lost princess.
~~~The Director~~~ Guillermo del Toro has come to this film from a background in well received, award winning films that touch on the same period (The Devil's Backbone) and that have proved a sound grounding in fantasy/horror (Hellboy and Blade II).
His interest in the period stems from his childhood in Mexico as those who fled there from Spain at that time helped shape Mexican culture and cinema and told
tales of their experiences that had an effect on Guillermo.
He sites folklore and fairy tales as one of his earliest influences. Fairy tales are stories of life and death, wonder, fantasy and horror, a great basis for cinema. In Pan's Labyrinth he uses this influence not to contrast with the real world, but to mirror and underline the horror of reality.
~~~Review~~~ This film is very powerful, to the extent that it had me engaged from start to finish. The fear and tension of the story is palpable throughout and I found myself at times quite literally (to the amusement of my husband) watching through my fingers. The film is at times gory, but it is more brutal than gory as the amount of actual violence shown is not the full extent of what is suggested by the story.
The power of the film is achieved in a number of ways.
Firstly, there is the ever present menace of the young girl's step father, Captain Vidal. His first words, a mere observation to himself that his wife and step daughter have arrived 15 minutes late, tell you that this is not a man who cares for them - he wants his unborn son to carry his name, he does not want a family. If we were in any doubt about him, the brutal way in which he deals with a father and son brought to him by his men as suspected guerrillas, and his reaction when their claim of being out hunting rabbit is found to be true once their bag is emptied (too late for them), will ensure we remain in fear of him throughout. Secondly, you care about the characters involved. For Ofelia, the young girl, and her pregnant mother, this is almost a primal feeling. This is absolutely the wrong place for a young girl and pregnant woman to be. The brutality of war (and if you want to read this as political allegory, of Fascism) is the antithesis of the innocence of childhood and the nurturing of motherhood.
Thirdly, there is such a strong and straightforward sense of good and evil that there is no question or ambiguity. Vidal's disregard for absolutely everyone, from the people he is fighting, to his own men and even his wife and stepdaughter are in stark contrast with the care, loyalty and profound love between Ofelia and her mother, Ofelia and Mercedes (a kind house keeper at the mill) and Mercedes and her brother, Pedro.
Finally, the cinematography itself adds to the power of the film. The scenes of the captain shaving at the mirror, whilst ostensibly so simple and benign, have a sense of menace that I can't quite explain in words. The scenes amongst the trees possess a similar quality. But ultimately, it is the scenes of fantasy, with their giant toad and (truly hideous, nightmare-enducing!!) child-eating monster, that add to the gothic beauty and the horror of this superb film.
The performances are very strong. In particular, the 12-year-old Ivana Baquero is superb as Ofelia, portraying innocence, fear and strength all at once and Sergei Lopez is stunningly horrific as Captain Vidal.
The soundtrack, by Javier Navarrete, is eerily beautiful and quite in keeping with the melancholy tone of the film. The melody from the score is underlined through the film by a refrain from it being hummed as a lullaby by Mercedes to Ofelia. Navarrete has a long history of score writing for Spanish film and his work for Pan's Labyrinth was nominated for an Oscar. The soundtrack is available on CD and is the kind I can imagine enjoying away from the film, evoking the mood and memories of the film.
~~~Conclusion~~~ For me, one sure sign of a great film is that it has me gripped and Pan's Labyrinth certainly did this. Whilst the film is not what I would class as 'horror' (although I'm not a horror fan and therefore no expert), if good horror evokes tension, foreboding and downright terror, then this film is 'good horror'.
The fact that I have almost forgotten to mention that the film is in Spanish with subtitles is testament to the strength of the story telling and cinematography - the subtitles were in no way a distraction.
If you like films to be entertaining, superficial and fun, then you won't enjoy this film. I admit to expecting the fantasy scenes to be a relief from the horrors of Ofelia's reality, but found that they are would more accurately be described as an extension, or even a mirror, so the tension is quite unrelenting. The positivity and hope in the film is found in it's dark beauty, but also in the message that amongst the evil that man can inflict on fellow man, you can find principles, loyalty and love. If, therefore, you like to be moved and affected (in a similar way to a film like Schindler's List), if you appreciate the art of film, if you like your tales dark, then this film is simply a film not to be missed.
~~~The DVD~~~ The DVD is available for £5.98 on Amazon, which is an absolute bargain given the quality of the film.
The 2 Disk set is a little more expensive at £9.97. This includes interviews with and introductions by director as well as story boards, thumbnails, director's notebook and galleries for the dedicated fan.
Whilst it may not be in the spirit of a consumer community web site, I should also point out that it has recently been shown on Film 4 and may therefore be repeated again soon, so you could watch it for free this way….
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
Production Year: 2000 - Horror - Director: Keenen Ivory Wayans - Original Language: English - Classification: 18 years and over - Starring: Carmen Electra, Anna Faris, Kurt Fuller, James Van Der Beek, Keenen Ivory Wayans
Innocence Has A Power Evil Cannot Imagine. Pan's Labyrinth is the story of a young girl ... more
that travels with her mother and adoptive father to a rural area up North in Spain 1944 - after Franco's victory. The girl lives in an imaginary world of her own ...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
Visionary director Guillermo del Toro creates a unique, richly imagined epic with Pan's ... more
Labyrinth, a gothic fairy tale set against the postwar era of Fanco's Spain.Pan's Labyrinth unfolds throught the eyes of Ofelia, a young girl uprooted to a remote m...
![Pan's Labyrinth (2 Disc Set) [2006] [DVD]](http://picnica.ciao.com/uk/78017840.jpg "Pan's Labyrinth (2 Disc Set) [2006] [DVD]")
exceptional by (4%):
very helpful by (94%):
helpful by (2%):
