Pan's Labyrinth

[Man with the Golden Arm]

from another movie thread ...

The best movie I saw this week was Pan's Labyrinth (not to derail the thread).

... just how heavy is this "R" rating on 'Labyrinth' - would a "tween" be OK with it? i'm eager to see it and my daughter has been buggin' for a scary movie.

i see that Wm Stout had done some concept work ... monster talent!

[Noj]

This is a New Line movie, by whom I am employed. It's supposed to be great, everyone in the office loves it. Go see it, everybody!

[Scott Dolan]

Saw the trailer for this one recently. Looks very intense, and very complex. Nothing like the previous turds this guy made.

And from what I've seen, it's not a scary movie at all. More like The Diary Of Anne Frank meet The Lord Of The Rings. Only better.

Can't wait to see it.

Edited January 22, 2007 by Scott Dolan

[Man with the Golden Arm]

I'm thinking more Peter Greenaway meets The Dark Crystal and they have Gelflings for supper.

wonder how much torture and blood letting etc there is? but these days compared to promos for all the CSI bits you see while watching a football game opinions vary as to what's a bit too much.

[Scott Dolan]

I'm thinking more Peter Greenaway meets The Dark Crystal and they have Gelflings for supper.

wonder how much torture and blood letting etc there is? but these days compared to promos for all the CSI bits you see while watching a football game opinions vary as to what's a bit too much.

Everytime I see commercials for those shows the only thought that comes to mind is "geez, what's with all the fucking yelling?!"

The extreme melodrama just reinforces why I don't watch much tv anymore.

[RDK]

A fine movie indeed, but much more intense than you might expect. Not sure i would take a pre-teen to see it.

[Alexander]

As I said in the "Iwo Jima" thread, I'm very much looking forward to this.

[sal]

This one and Iwo Jima are next on my list, as is Almodovar's "Volver".

[RDK]

I'm thinking more Peter Greenaway meets The Dark Crystal and they have Gelflings for supper.

Heh. Never thought of it that way, but pretty accurate really.

wonder how much torture and blood letting etc there is? but these days compared to promos for all the CSI bits you see while watching a football game opinions vary as to what's a bit too much.

Fair amount of torture and bloodletting. The problem is, the grizzlier parts are mostly with the "real" (Spanish civil war) parts of the story, not so much with the fantasy/dream-like sections, which are wonderous and nightmarish but relatively bloodless.

[Man with the Golden Arm]

thanks Ray. i will save it for myself.

requests have been coming for some time to go see some "like, really scary stuff". i have yet to cave and this coming from a house with only four channels on the antenna.

"Labyrinth" just had that look of Roald Dahl doing Narnia with a bit of that Lynchian twist that i prefer.

i've not seen a good scare for a long time and that genre is now so gourged with torture that little good old fairy-tail darkness exists anymore.

i'll have to go rent "Dark Crystal" instead but it just won't mean much on our little tv set.

[sal]

Well, I saw this last night. Not sure if my expectations were just too high, but I was under whelmed. I didn't really feel any sort of emotion while watching it, and at the same time I felt like the film was a merging of certain elements from other films I'd already seen before. I felt as if the scenes that were supposed to be "intense" were rehashed. I could easily see how they could work, but I'd felt I'd seen pretty much all of it before. In the end, I came out respecting the film, and even moderately enjoyed it, but I wasn't moved at all. This one was going for the jugular, and unfortunately it just didn't work for me.

At the same time, I thought that it was visually stunning, and thought the performances were superb, particularly by the actor who played Vidal. I think this film will end up being a turning point for Guillermo Del Torro (who, as mentioned above, has made crap for the better part of his career), and I'll be looking forward to his next project.

I'm very happy to see the strides made by Mexican directors this year! Although this one and "Babel" didn't work for me as they apparently have for many others, I'm glad to see these guys getting recognition (Children of Men is amazing). Mexico has always been a center of some superb film talent, and here's hoping that people start to recognize that.

[tonym]

Amazing film, well acted and desperately moving.

This is no Greenaway wank-a-thon though!

Interesting point above regarding the callous bloodshed portrayed in the factual sections whereas the fantasy portions of the movie were no doubt sinister, but rarely graphically violent.

Again, I don't think it's a movie for children below 14/15.

By far the best film I saw in 2006.

[Clunky]

Best film I've seen in a long time. Graphic violence and peril as they say. I won't be taking my daughter. 15 plus sounds ok to me

[Soul Stream]

I really enjoyed this movie quite a lot. Best movie I've seen this year I'd have to say. Very interesting and VERY different. I didn't even mind reading the subtitles, which usually drives me nuts.

[ep1str0phy]

Interesting point above regarding the callous bloodshed portrayed in the factual sections whereas the fantasy portions of the movie were no doubt sinister, but rarely graphically violent.

Again, I don't think it's a movie for children below 14/15.

By far the best film I saw in 2006.

Another issue entirely is Del Torro's penchant for comedic horror, which is certainly prevalent throughout the bulk of the film (particularly the fantasy elements), but, interestingly, not nearly so disturbing as the intermittent "violent realism" scene (and if those can't make you wince...). That's another issue, though, when choosing viewing partners--see if they can handle fantastical gut explosions and whatnot...

I enjoyed the film well enough, though having seen Children of Men just a few nights before and expecting lots after the Globe hype explosion, those more emotionally jarring moments may have been lost on me. I'm not sure, for one, if the (*SPOILER?*) final conceit (what happened when the other folks "encountered" the fantasy world) properly served the narrative--it diminished, for me, the dread and wonder of the fantastical elements, even if the ultimate purpose of the film was to tie everything back to reality (but in killing the romance, aren't we just left with another anti-fascist war flick?). Enough to get you thinking, though...

Edited January 31, 2007 by ep1str0phy

[tonym]

The ending, for me, was as inevitable as any death. Moreso, given the desperate environment wartime inhabitants face. The fact that Ofelia had created this quasi-religious backdrop (safety-net) in which to fall into was much the same as an old guy 'finding' his faith as he approaches the day. Her destiny was obviously made all the more welcoming by the reconciliation with loved ones and arrival at 'a better place'; again a phrase which is often bandied around at times of death.

The only alternative for her was to know her certain fate would be in vain, without solace and bereft of calm.

Again, a brilliant film. Made me think differently about faith and mortality.

Not that I'm about to invest in some rosary beads.

[ep1str0phy]

Interesting perspective, and I'll admit that I see the dramatic "logic" in Ofelia's fate--albeit from a different perspective, and not, perhaps, in any comforting manner.

The (a?) more obvious conceit involves the tension between fascistic ideology/dogma and free thought. The juxtaposition of Pan's (often rageful) imperatives with the Captain's totalitarian demanor implied a sort of parallel between dictatorial militarism and the fantasy world. My issue with the upshot of the whole narrative is that it seems to both undermine both faith and fantasy (and, by association, those dogmatic elements of faith) by both sort-of revealing *SPOILER* Ofelia's "dream" interactions as illusions and closing the film on the image of her very realistic death--on that level, the "reunion" at the end was small comfort (at the same time dulling the "realness" of the fantasy world/afterlife by trumpeting to the audience that yes, the protagonist is dead). At the same time, the violent outcomes of enjoining free thought/morality in light of a totalitarian force (whether that be the military or Pan) seemed to amplify the destructive powers of ideology, which is (to me, anyway) rather anti-religious.

We're meant to associate with Ofelia, so when free thought and innocent morality (her characteristics) are conflated with faithlessness, then we're romanticizing not just the secular (which happens all the time), but also the "not fantastic". That's the reason that the film didn't have the same impact for me as (for example) Children of Men, which was in ways equally faithless but far less leery and more emotionally direct.

Edited February 1, 2007 by ep1str0phy