Pans Laberynth

[lugaru]

By the look of things Guillermo Del Toro takes his fantasy quite seriously. For a movie about fairy tales Pan's Labyrinth is bloody intense with its twin worlds (one fantasy, one real) full of violence, danger and deception.  Together with his compatriot Alfonso Cuaron he is well known for spinning genre yearns with creative visuals and even turned down both the Harry Potter and Narnia franchises due to lack of creative control.

Pans Labyrinth opens with young Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her pregnant mother Carmen (Adriana Gil) being transported via motorcade to the Spanish countryside, a gorgeous forest peppered with medieval sculptures and ruins. Why the motorcade? Because she is the new wife of Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez), the ruthless military pawn charged with exterminating the remaining communist resistance in a now fascist 1940's Spain. And just to make sure nobody confuses Captain Vidal with a stern but well meaning stepfather to Ofelia, early on we get to watch him beat a captive to death with a wine bottle during an interrogation. Gory scenes like this are abundant too, making the fantasy world Ofelia is lead to by an insect-like fairy a truly appealing escape. And this is no Disney fantasy world either; it is the product of unrevised fairy tails and mythology, populated by enormous toads, anthropophagic gorgons and screaming mandrake roots. And like most fairy tales it is a world where disobedience is punishable by death, so when Ofelia is offered three tasks in order to reclaim her birthright as a princess she trusts the ancient Faun at the heart of the labyrinth wholeheartedly. Meanwhile in the real world her mother's health is deteriorating and the Captains servant Mercedes (played by Y tu mama tambien babe Maribel Verdu) is sneaking behind his back to give aid to the communist freedom fighters hidden in the forest, giving you plenty of warning that things are going to go terribly wrong in the films final arc.

Still the main star and mystery of this movie are the inventive visuals and how he got a top notch effects studio to assemble them at discount rates. Perhaps Guillermo Del Toro charmed them by talking shop (he ran an effects studio back in Mexico) or they really dug the challenge that his ideas posed. Regardless shades of high budget hell boy prosthetics and makeup create creatures both impossible and perfectly logical, and coupled with excellent performances it's hard to not get wrapped up in this gorgeously tragic tale.


http://www.theconnoisseurs.com/javierpan.html

[Qwazy]

i did see this advertised at some stupid hour of the evening...morning....im not sure...a while back

it looks very well done but to be honest, i have trouble with subtitled films - paying to much attention to either the text or the actual film and missing little bits.

i would be intrested in watchin this at some point but it wouldnt be for quite some time :P

i only saw a small snipet when advertised, and from what i saw the visuals looks really impressive

[gdaybloke]

I'm not into gore and excessive violence (heh... define excessive) in films, so that's got my eyebrow cocked from the word go, but I hear the visuals are something else...

[Volsung]

That movie strongly marked me for Sergi López role.
I can't remember where you could find a more heartless character.
He would scare the sh*t out of Hannibal Lecter.

[lugaru]

I'm not into gore and excessive violence (heh... define excessive) in films, so that's got my eyebrow cocked from the word go, but I hear the visuals are something else...

Its hard to define the violence in that movie... its very much "foreign movie" violence. You know, its brutal and realistic but it dosent occur often enough to make you say "wow, this is a gorey movie", its more like "wow, this is a bleak movie". And none of it is cathartic at all, there's no "hahaha, he got chomped in half by a dinosaur". But you should be fine with the movie, Im a huge "close my eyes" wuss when it comes to violence and I made it through the movie just fine.

About Subs I still recomend watching it if anything for the visuals (both fantasy and real). The cinematography is gorgeous and it zips past you, not a "boring but pretty" movie at all. And yeah, Im guilty of reading the subs even though it is in spanish, sometimes a spanish (from spain) accent throws me off (I also sometimes put subs on the REALLY british movies and irish ones).

[Ajax]

Saw this movie last friday and I have to say it was pretty good. :thumbup: Visually amazing and it's definitly a movie that leaves a different impression on each person (especially concerning the ending).

[spoiler]Still trying to put my finger on who exactly the pale man is. I want to say a boogey man archetype but I've heard various comments that it has biblical meaning or is a critique on the catholic church. Also about the shoes having to do with the Holocaust?[/spoiler]

[lugaru]

Uhm... spoilers!

[spoiler]About the ending well there are two camps... she was magical (which would explain the unexplainable parts) or that the poor deluded girl died over some childish fantasies. I prefer not to think too much about it since the balance between fantasy and cruel reality was drawn quite nicely.

About he pail man one newspaper review alluded his similarity to the painting of saturn eating Chronos especially with all the pantings on the wall. I had not thought about the shoes, but that's a cool view. I guess all in all he is like a manifestation of every childs "disobey what you are told and you will be eaten by the boogey man" stories only once you get older you realize that the boogey man that kills most children are wars, abuse, famine, illness...

http://www.utexas.edu/courses/larrymyth/images/Saturn-Eating-Cronus.jpg

[/spoiler]

[UnkoMan]

Man, I have only heard rave reviews about this movie. Nothing but.

I'd say they are all well deserved. Really, it's a great flick.