CRS
Chandler, Arizona, United States

There's an old saying. If you don't want someone to join a crowd, you ask them, "If everyone were jumping off of a cliff, would you?" Well, I have. So my answer would be "Yes". True story.
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Review of Pan's Labyrinth

Friday, January 26, 2007

this entry brought to you by sleater-kinney, "things you say"





Despite the fact that my movie consumption tends to lean more towards the non-mainstream over the mainstream, I've never actually seen much other than blockbusters in the theater, and I've certainly never paid money to see a foreign language film in any place other than my home. The reason is that I tend to only feel satisfied with the money spent at the movies when I see large, megabudget events with explosive special effects that need to be seen on the big screen to be appreciated. More intimate movies are better seen at home where I don't have to deal with people. However, every now and again an arty, non-mainstream film will come along with rich, wonderful visuals (2001's Amelie springs to mind, or the more recent The Fountain) where I'll be dying to see it at the cinemas, only to find out it's only playing in two places in the city, both 30 miles away in opposite directions. When Pan's Labyrinth, a beautiful yet nightmarish Mexican film by Guillermo Del Toro (who directed Hellboy in 2004), was given a wide release following the wave of publicity it received during the Golden Globes, I was overjoyed to find that it was being shown at the local Cineplex. Turns out that my first foreign language film at a theater was quite a doozie.

Pan's Labyrinth is imagined as a fairy tale for grown-ups, and as such, fits the theme perfectly. The lead character, Ofelia (played wondrously with alternating wide-eyed innocence and fear by young actress Ivana Baquero, who I hope has a career with English speaking roles in her future so more people can know about her), as told in the opening narration, is the incarnation of a princess from a fantasy world filled with disturbing creatures, and her father, the king, has spent ages waiting to be reunited with her. She is found by Pan, a creepy goat-like creature whose motivations seem questionable, and is told that she can return to her home world once she has completed three dangerous tasks which involve defeating monstrosities even more frightening than he is (including a disgusting and enormous venom-spitting tree frog, and a hairless beast called The Pale Man that has eyes in its hands).

What makes it a mature fairy tale, however, isn't just the macabre world Ofelia travels to, but the unpleasant reality she lives in as well. Pan's Labyrinth takes place in Spain in 1944. The Civil War is officially over, but the fascists in power are still having problems stamping out rebel factions that crop up and fight back. Ofelia's mother, pregnant and bed-ridden, has married Captain Vidal, a wicked and cruel leader of the fascist military. Vidal essentially takes the role of the Wicked Step-Parent role of children's fairy tales, but what makes the character work is the grim fact that men such as he have existed throughout human history and continue to do so; applause goes to actor Sergi Lopez for taking the character and turning him into a horrible, but plausible man, rather than just a cartoonish tyrant. As the movie begins, the fantasy world that Ofelia escapes to seems disturbing, but as it goes on, nothing that happens there is anywhere near as frightening has the harshness and brutality of reality. Men die violently on the battlefield, the near-dead that are scattered about the landscape are shot unsympathetically in the head, and the survivors are captured and tortured for information. Civilians sympathetic to the cause (Mercedes, played with palpable vitality by Y Tu Mama Tambien actress Maribel Verdu) must help in secret, or else be killed as traitors. Innocent farmers out hunting for wild rabbits in the middle of the night are captured and brutally killed at one point for fear of being part of a nearby rebel faction.

Pan's Labyrinth has billed itself as a movie about innocence prevailing in the face of evil, but there's a lot more going on in this movie than that, and the rare detractor that has criticized the movie for its simplicity (simplicity that, in fact, is merely on the surface), seem to be missing the point. There is never a point in time where Ofelia's alternate reality or her guide, Pan, seem particularly safe or inviting. In fact, there is a moment when Pan apologizes for erupting at her the day before and embraces her, telling her that she has one simple, final task that she must do to return home, yet your skin crawls during this moment because you're still not sure what Pan's motivations are or whether he intends to harm her. Del Toro has excised his most nightmarish demons and put them on the screen in the form of breathtakingly detailed prosthetics and seamless CGI, yet it seems positively playful compared to the harshness and cruelty of the real world. That Ofelia would choose a macabre world of uncertainty over our own is as clever a statement as any other movie, and it masterfully leaves a deep impression on you after having seen it.
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on this day last year yesterday last year, i wrote a scathing entry about smoking, and i decided to follow it up with another entry about smoking. i had a friend that used to compare fat people to smokers, and i didn't think that was very fair.
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with love from CRS @ 8:40 AM 

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