Dystopia—it’s the new Utopia.
Quite brilliant, really, when you think about our current state of affairs and the increasing need to retreat into the cocoon of denial and escapism. Guillermo del Toro brings us this alternate, down-the-rabbit hole reality that just might be more trippy than Lewis Carroll’s gobbledygook for young children. Pan’s Labyrinth brings the magical realism that is Mexican filmmaking to the fore—and it dazzles like a vertiginous hallucination with colors and textures that jump off the screen. The cerebral teaser tagline, “What happens when make believe believes it’s real?” just might be oblique enough to make you pause and use the very squishy labyrinth that is your brain.
Pan’s Labyrinth is a tragically beautiful dreamscape that grows out of the carnage of the Spanish Civil War in 1944. The new trend in filmmaking seems inclined to harness the bucking bull of violence—not the Jackson Pollack, splatter paint/comic book bloodshed of Kill Bill and Pulp Fiction, but the kind of hole-in-your face, cannibalistic action that leaves you with your mouth rigidly clenched in “O.” FYI people: fatalistic beauty is in.
At the heart of the movie is a stoic young beauty, Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) who has mastered the art of the dreamy, yet pointed stare. Ofelia is either one precocious young chica, or she’s got some serious emotional baggage after her mother Carmen shacks up with the sadistic Fascist Captain Vidal. Nice work Mom.
Ofelia finds outlet in the stony walls that make up the tellurian labyrinth, discovering the Faun, who directs her to three tasks that will ensure her immortality. With off-putting opaque eyes, the tree-limbed Faun (played by the ever protean Doug Jones) is a creaky beast who oversees the entrance to the magical underworld. Heaven and Hell intersect in the tightly coiled walls of the labyrinth, which stands for all things polar and paradoxical. Conceived as preadmite—the maze is the figurative aborted maternal womb foreshadowing the fall of mankind.
The literary and mythology references run rampant, from the sinful seduction of food, to an Odyssean descent into the underworld. Physical deformity becomes the norm as products of the war and Ofelia’s imaginative surplus. A baby-eater with some impressive baggy skin post-natal-starvation is hands down the biggest freak out, certifiable enough to scare the bejeezus out of a grown adult. I have to wonder what kind of childhood Del Toro experienced to conjure up such a monstrosity. But nightmares schnightmares, it’s just harmless make believe right?
At times, the immediacy of Vidal’s warfare threatens to completely overtake the enchanted alternate world—I almost became disillusioned with the very reality of the movie itself. But Harry Potter, take note: this is magic when it’s all grown up, and it sure as heck beats the living daylights out of some prepubescent fantasy with wands. Now, just where is that damn rabbit hole?
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OMG..I saw this movie 4 times now. I was mesmerized every single time I saw it. It was beautifully filmed and the ending was heart wrenching. I could’nt stop crying. Great movie!!
July 9th, 2007 19:04
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February 17th, 2008 07:21
It is really the great movie!
October 13th, 2008 02:46