Pan's Labyrinth

[bix171]

Guillermo del Toro's fairy tale for adults is not only an intriguingly complex imagining of facist Spain, and it's not only a further development of his theme of family creation/reunification explored in earlier films such as "Mimic", but it also, in its carefully constructed art and set designs, is a direct descendant in the lineage of Spanish painters from the sixteenth century such as the realists de Zuberain and Vazquez through modern abstractionists Dali and Picasso. In fact, the film could--and probably should--be viewed at least once with no sound in order to study these references. (I recognize del Toro is Mexican, but his facination with Franco's Spain has become specific subject matter for his films and Spanish art clearly has its influence here.) Aside from some occasionally spotty special efects, everything is near perfection, from del Toro's wonderfully thought-out screenplay, mixing the surreal, magical and real effortlessly, to the pervasively dark visual world (both earth and sky) photographed by the great Guillermo Navarro, to the clever transitional editing by Bernat Vilaplana, to the superb performances, most notably by Sergi Lopez as the personification of facism at its most consuming and Ivana Baquero as the lost princess of the underworld trying to make her way through a corporeal life meaningless to her Creator. Exceedingly literate and challenging, it satisfies in a way few other films of late have.

[oscar jubis]

That's it. In a nutshell. Pan's Labyrinth is one of the best films of 2006. I look forward to repeat viewings. Perhaps one with the sound off as you suggest. I was very impressed by the correspondences between the real world and the one imagined by our "lost princess" in order to make sense and process the horrors of the time.
I just had a rare opportunity to watch perhaps the best documentary about the Spanish Civil War: Joris Ivens' The Spanish Earth (1937), which made me sad because the narration by one Ernest Hemingway is very optimistic about a possible Republican victory.

[Chris Knipp]

This is one of the most admired films of 2006. Doesn't anybody have anything more to say about it?

It was in the NYIFF and I reviewed (http://www.filmwurld.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=16065#post16065) in in my Festival Coverage of that event. Like Cuarón's Children of Men and Innaritu's Babel, it's another extremely accomplished and extremely ambitious piece of work from a Mexican director that came to us last year. But I think that its adult fairy tale aspect blinds us to the fact that it's lacking in some areas -- despite the striking visuals, the good acting, and the elaborate dual plotline. Nonetheless I would consider it a must-see for 2006.

Here's my review from last fall again:

GUILLERMO DEL TORO: PAN'S LABYRINTH (2006)

http://img19.imageshack.us/img19/8021/panslabyrinth400a0320.jpg

Dreams in red; memories in blue: fascism and a child's escapes

Pan’s Labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno) is an unusual blend of fairy tale and nightmarish modern history – a well-produced, well-acted amalgam with seamless and powerful use of sound, image and special effect that seems likely to impress some American art-house audiences and fans or the Mexican director’s earlier Spanish-language films, Cronos and The Devil’s Backbone. Like the latter, this is colored by the Spanish Civil War. Franco’s men have won, but the Republicans are still fighting and the nasty Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez) heads a small company of fascist forces headquartered in a hillside mill who are trying to wipe out a band of partisans operating nearby. As the film begins a pair of period Rolls Royces carries Carmen (Ariadna Gil), the new wife of Vidal, pregnant and ill. With her is her bookish, reserved daughter Ofelia (Ivan Baquero). Perhaps to escape the ugly world of the Captain, who immediately reveals himself to be not just a stiff meanie, but a chauvinist and a sadistic brute, Ofelia, already followed by a large clicking fairy-insect on the ride, retreats into the fantasy world of her books, which soon becomes the film's alternative universe. Playing outdoors near a damp labyrinth, Ofelia encounters an aged Faun (Pan; del Toro regular Doug Jones, in mechanized and digitalized gear) who tells her she is a lost princess who must perform three dangerous tasks to be restored to power and return to her underground home.

The movie could be seen as a sinister spin on the Alice books or perhaps as Disney-meets-Bunuel (though Bunuel isn’t really a source). This is magic realism with a bloody streak and a free play of imagination. Del Toro blends his strongest personal models here – the influences of exiled Spanish Republicans who were mentors to him in his youth; fairly tales and legends; comic books; even video games play into the mixture. If the result feels somewhat indigestible, it’s not because the writer-director hasn’t given his historical and fantasy worlds equal weight, but because their coexistence is both hard to credit and too vivid. Events on both sides of the looking-glass are equally horrific, and the flow back and forth is smooth. And a strong feature of the film is that despite its use of state-of-the-art special effects, they are handled with a certain tact and restraint.

While Ofelia is performing her tasks, including an encounter with a giant toad and a terrifying Pale Man (Jones again) with eyes in his palms, Captain Vidal is losing ground against the partisans, who are helped by his housekeeper Mercedes (Maribel Verdu of Y Tu Mamá También) and his doctor (Alex Angulo); Vidal personally and zestfully carries out medieval-style tortures to extract information from captured fighters. Meanwhile the ailing, pregnant Carmen is a virtual prisoner, and it’s clear Vidal only wants a male son and doesn’t care if she dies in childbirth. To protect her future brother, Ofelia uses a large, squirmy root given her by the Faun that looks like a human fetus, and prays for the survival of her mother.

Those who are eager for the downfall of the evil Captain are not likely to be disappointed, but this is a bloody, disturbing story in which there are few survivors and is absolutely not a fairy tale for children. Even more creepy than the unpredictable psychopath of With a Friend Like Harry here, Sergi Lopez is one of the best screen villains now working: his Captain Vidal is a disturbing if unvarying blend of Freudian obsession and sheer cruelty. Is this what men – or fascists – are like? (Scenes of the fantasy world are in warm colors with rounded 'feminine' shapes predominant; the fascists’ realm is in blues and 'male' right angles.)

While the story moves along with jaw-dropping vividness and del Toro never loses touch with his own imagination, the family relationships have no more depth than a fairy tale. A less grandly visual film with less spectacular effects might have interrelated real and imaginary worlds in more thought-provoking ways. It’s not entirely clear what Ofelia’s attitudes toward the actual setting are. Nonetheless, despite its horrific details and its strange combination of the childlike and the political, this is, overall, a visual and auditory treat, indebted to many sources yet not quite like anything else. It had a a kind of festive grandeur that made it a suitable closing night presentation for the New York Film Festival, 2006.

[bix171]

Spoilers herein

Chris,

I've read your review a couple of times now and am still not sure what areas you find lacking outside of your comment that "the family relationships have no more depth than a fairy tale" and "It's not entirely clear what Ofelia's attitudes toward the actual setting are." Could you elaborate a bit more?

I do disagree with the first comment, though, the one about family relationships. I think those dynamics are quite complex. The Captain's sole obsession is with his son, both unborn then born. He's willing to sacrifice anyone for his son's survival. But his survival--and his son's ability to carry on the Captain's legacy--is all the Captain cares about. The son seems more like a figurehead than an actual human being.

What I find most interesting about Captain Vidal is that he's less interested that his son carry on his family's lineage than the Captain's legacy. His attitude towards his own father is ambivalent. When told at dinner that his father broke his pocketwatch at the time of his death in order that his son know the exact hour and minute, Vidal denies the watch's existence, though it's the very watch Vidal has just repaired. (Time, a very important compenent of the film, one referenced throughout, only exists for mortals and the Captain sees himself immortal, or moving towards immortality.)

The dynamic of Ofelia and her mother is also interesting. Clearly, Ofelia sees the grave threat to her mother that the Captain represents (and evetually confirms it). But her mother is much more confused about the situation; she seems to feel guilt about her remarriage and is too afraid to react to her new spouse. She reacts to her daughter, seeing defiance instead of compassion in Ofelia's ruining of the party dress she's made for her. But this reaction is understandable, given her difficult pregnancy and, should she have survived, would probably have been confronted with the monster that her new husband really is.

I myself think the family relationships are a very important part of the film, one that's depth is, in fact, one of its strongest virtues.

[Chris Knipp]

I can't debate the merits of the film with you really. As you can see, I had many good things to say about it, and the fact that I find it too heavy, too baroque, overdone if you like, pushed, shouldn't concern you: it's been an overwhelming critical success here and in other countries too, I think, and what's more I could see at once at the NYFF press screening of it that it was going to be. Another thing I said you don't quote: "A less grandly visual film with less spectacular effects might have interrelated real and imaginary worlds in more thought-provoking ways." But even the first del Toro film I saw (and I haven't seen any others except Hellboy, again not to my taste, though some people love it), the 2001 The Devil's BAckbone, though elegant and spare, I found alien. I just don't know where he's coming from. I completely acknowledge Pan's Labyrinth is "a well-produced, well-acted amalgam with seamless and powerful use of sound, image and special effect," and "overall, a visual and auditory treat, indebted to many sources yet not quite like anything else" that has "a kind of festive grandeur." That's what I originally wrote. But again I do also still feel that "A less grandly visual film with less spectacular effects might have interrelated real and imaginary worlds in more thought-provoking ways"--and would have made the family relationships clearer or more real, to me, anyway. It is simply not a world that I can relate to. And I suppose I do relate to Lewis Carroll. I grew up with that, and its English wit and paradox are close to the way I learned to think. I admire Sergi Lopez. But I prefer him in what may be considered an inferior film, but one that's much more entertaining to me, With a Friend Like Harry. In that, he seems to me a very real, though also a very alarming and dangerous and also strangely comical person. In Pan's Labyrinth, he's a great bad guy, but his badness somehow, like the rest, is pushed so far it doesn't seem real. Where's "the banality of evil"? This is more the Grand Guignol sort. But I'm pushing, because you want an argument, whereas as I said, I can't really debate the film and if you love it you're in good company. I don't hate it, I just don't respond to it, and there are lots more where that came from. We all have tastes. I can recognize it's well done. But for me it probably would have been better done if there had been about 400% fewer special effects.

[bix171]

you want an argument

I'm hoping you're referencing that term in a manner more towards debate. I'd like to think arguing is not what we do on this forum. (Well, occasionally me and Johann get into it.)

We're both in agreement with what works for us in "Pan's Labyrinth" and I have less qualms with it than you. That's all.

I'm not sure if del Toro has another great movie in him; the only other one of his I've seen was "Mimic" and while it had an interesting subtext to it (the solidification of the family unit in a time of adverisity, something "Pan's Labyrinth" denies), it was a pretty lame entry in the horror genre.

[oscar jubis]

I think you would enjoy watching The Devil's Backbone, which was co-written, co-produced and directed by Guillermo del Toro. It's a horror story set in a boys' orphanage during the Spanish Civil War. It's available on dvd with plenty of extras including director's commentary.

[Chris Knipp]

you want an argument

I'm hoping you're referencing that term in a manner more towards debate. I'd like to think arguing is not what we do on this forum.
--bix It sounds like I was being naughty but I assure you I indeed meant argument in the sense you state as debate or discussion and actually used the word debate interchangeably in the same sentence. I'm glad you and Johann reached an agreement on what works in the Pan's Labyrinth. I think a lot works in it even though overall it seems to have received more praise than I expected--only because there were other equally worthy films that came out at the same time.
I'm not sure if del Toro has another great movie in himI hope you're wrong but he seems to vary widely in the kinds of things he attempts.

Oscar Jubis writes:
I think you would enjoy watching The Devil's Backbone, which was co-written, co-produced and directed by Guillermo del Toro. Not Hellboy? Anway I saw The Devil's Backbone (as well as Hellboy) when they came out myself--that's what I mean by saying he varies widely in the kinds of things he attempts. In Devil's Backbone del Toro dealt with similar material to the subjects of Pan's Labyrinth -- childhood, the Spanish Civil War, etc., in a manner that was more spare and European. I guess I liked it better but it still didn't appeal to me all that much, though again, it was well done. I seem to have missed del Toro's Mimic but since it is about bugs let me recommend to everyone the terrific upcoming film Bugs directed by William Friedkin from Tracy Letts' play (and screenplay). A psychological horror thriller to remember.

[Chris Knipp]

Guillermo del Toro's Å“uvre (best known items only) in ascending order of critical merit according to Metacritics goes like this:

2002 Blade II 52

1997 Mimic 55

2004 Hellboy 72

1993 Cronos 75

2006 Pan's Labyrinth 98

I'd say that makes his future hard to predict.