James Reviews Pan's Labyrinth
It’s a very rare thing for me to go to a movie I know nothing about, but that’s what I did last Saturday night based simply on the title and the lobby poster. Pan’s Labyrinth turned out to be one of those rare impulses that paid off.
I really liked Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro’s 2001 Spanish-language film The Devil’s Backbone, and his latest subtitled effort is just as enthralling as Backbone, but far darker and more imaginative.
Set in the 1940’s around the time of the Spanish Civil War, a young girl is removed with her expectant mother to her cruel stepfather’s military outpost where her life descends into a maelstrom of intrigue, despair and tragedy, both within the context of her new life with the embattled Captain and into her (imagined?) decent through a labyrinth and into an underworld waiting for the return of its lost princess. There Ophelia encounters the faun Pan, who tells her that she is the long-awaited princess. Pan gives her a book of blank pages into which will appear instructions for three tests she must pass before she can return to her underworld kingdom.
The rich fantasy through which she passes in pursuit of her tasks is visually stunning, boldly askew, often horrific and always mesmerizing. The goings-on at the outpost where she now lives (and where she fears for her mother’s deteriorating pregnancy) are equally as horrific, as household servants turn traitor and the rebels close in with the goal of defeating and murdering the cruel Captain. Though she loves her mother, it becomes apparent that perhaps Ophelia is better off spirited away from the horrors of war and into the improbable labyrinth where she would reign forever as princess of an underworld kingdom.
These two stories -- the real drama unfolding at the outpost and the fairy tale unfolding under beds and in strange dining rooms behind chalk doors -- intertwine, weaving in and out toward a common conclusion. Or perhaps it is better said that film follows Ophelia through two realities that finally intersect at the film’s climax, where the resolution seems to solicit more questions from the viewer even as it resolves others.
Pan’s Labyrinth is at its core a fairy tale, one populated by hidden doorways, magical lands, fluttering fairies and a mysterious faun who may or may not be benign. But this fantasy world del Toro creates is as harsh and grim and as violent as the war which serves as its backdrop. It's a spectacular film, and it's a spectacularly good film, but it is absolutely not for the kiddies.
I really liked Hellboy director Guillermo del Toro’s 2001 Spanish-language film The Devil’s Backbone, and his latest subtitled effort is just as enthralling as Backbone, but far darker and more imaginative.
Set in the 1940’s around the time of the Spanish Civil War, a young girl is removed with her expectant mother to her cruel stepfather’s military outpost where her life descends into a maelstrom of intrigue, despair and tragedy, both within the context of her new life with the embattled Captain and into her (imagined?) decent through a labyrinth and into an underworld waiting for the return of its lost princess. There Ophelia encounters the faun Pan, who tells her that she is the long-awaited princess. Pan gives her a book of blank pages into which will appear instructions for three tests she must pass before she can return to her underworld kingdom.
The rich fantasy through which she passes in pursuit of her tasks is visually stunning, boldly askew, often horrific and always mesmerizing. The goings-on at the outpost where she now lives (and where she fears for her mother’s deteriorating pregnancy) are equally as horrific, as household servants turn traitor and the rebels close in with the goal of defeating and murdering the cruel Captain. Though she loves her mother, it becomes apparent that perhaps Ophelia is better off spirited away from the horrors of war and into the improbable labyrinth where she would reign forever as princess of an underworld kingdom.
These two stories -- the real drama unfolding at the outpost and the fairy tale unfolding under beds and in strange dining rooms behind chalk doors -- intertwine, weaving in and out toward a common conclusion. Or perhaps it is better said that film follows Ophelia through two realities that finally intersect at the film’s climax, where the resolution seems to solicit more questions from the viewer even as it resolves others.
Pan’s Labyrinth is at its core a fairy tale, one populated by hidden doorways, magical lands, fluttering fairies and a mysterious faun who may or may not be benign. But this fantasy world del Toro creates is as harsh and grim and as violent as the war which serves as its backdrop. It's a spectacular film, and it's a spectacularly good film, but it is absolutely not for the kiddies.
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