Women in Cuaron's Children of Men & Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth.
In continuation to my little meta blah-blah on 'Children of Men', here are a few things to keep in mind:
On the pregnant woman being black and her spirituality (and that of the mid-wife) being slightly voodoo-ish (through suggestion): "...the belief systems of the indigenous, blacks, and women were of necessity archaic, for no other options were open to them." (Jean Franco, p. 505)
That she needs Clive Owen's character to leave Britain proves other binaries also found in Latin-American fiction:
masculine - mobile (active)
feminine - immobile (passive)
(p 507)
Note: "The very immobility of women, their 'territoriality', made them the repository of an underground power that seemed to come from the land itself." (p. 511)
And did anybody notice that the journalist was a man and his wife eventually sinks into a sickness of silence? In Franco's essay, Latin American literature usually relegates the function of memory to women and writing to men.
Since the movie is truly about a dystopian world where man's only hope could be found in the one, very pregnant lady on the planet: "In a masculine world dominated by death and violence, the space of the mother had come to seem utopian..." (p. 509). It seems that the movie itself creates 'a fantasy of society of scarcity in a region in which the once bounteous earth had mysteriously become unproductive', comparative to perhaps what Franco says about Marquez's women in '100 Years of Solitude'.
Interesting, yes?
Check out: Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Edited by Cory Nelson & Laurence Grossberg. Urbana Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1988. Particularly Jean Franco's essay Beyond Ethnocentrism: Gender, Power, and the Third World Intelligentsia.
Then we come to Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Oh my. *shivers*
My thoughts are all over the place with regards to this movie but I'll just write 'em down anyway. Watch it in Spanish because if someone decides to dub this in English, I have a feeling they'll kill certain essences with the translation.
This is one scary, weird, dark fairy-tale. Children die in this movie. There is blood, milk, honey and other foods in abundance and they are used in strange (but beautiful!) conjunction to life and death. The technicals were great; a few halts in editing but hey, a perfect movie would be boring. The filters they used for the camera lent the scenes mood, an incredible range of color, and symmetry.
I don't think I can wank this movie enough. Women aren't beat up as much as the men though they play a big part as 1) messengers, 2) mothers, and 3) healers. They're still confined to their usual roles but we do have a strong woman in Mercedes and the child.
The Capitan is strangely likeable, but that may be because I'm a big fan of President Roslin. He's sick in the head, partly because of the madness of war; he deals with his own inner demons and broods in the shadow of his father.
The main character writes her own book, creates her own doors into yet undiscovered worlds, as children are wont to do. It's interesting to note that the worlds she delves into, the horrendous tasks she undergoes, are contrasted to the world she actually lives in. Which is worse? Perhaps it's a commentary on how imagination cannot fathom the monstrosities of war.
The girl --strangely enough --is powerless to stop her own death (on the physical plain, at least).
In conjunction to this, there is a bounty of earth-images here: from the dead fig tree, to the rebels in the forest (and their informant being a woman), to the stone of the labyrinth itself. Interesting, really, how the masculine and the feminine are mixed and melded into powerful images. Men are associated with building, guns, military power, and technology. Women, to the mythic, the imaginary, the fairies.
Ultimately, we're met with the power of the imagination, of dreaming, and the age-old constructs that harbor nobility, self-sacrifice, and honor.
Now go watch it without your little siblings. It's a great piece of film-making and I loved it.
On the pregnant woman being black and her spirituality (and that of the mid-wife) being slightly voodoo-ish (through suggestion): "...the belief systems of the indigenous, blacks, and women were of necessity archaic, for no other options were open to them." (Jean Franco, p. 505)
That she needs Clive Owen's character to leave Britain proves other binaries also found in Latin-American fiction:
masculine - mobile (active)
feminine - immobile (passive)
(p 507)
Note: "The very immobility of women, their 'territoriality', made them the repository of an underground power that seemed to come from the land itself." (p. 511)
And did anybody notice that the journalist was a man and his wife eventually sinks into a sickness of silence? In Franco's essay, Latin American literature usually relegates the function of memory to women and writing to men.
Since the movie is truly about a dystopian world where man's only hope could be found in the one, very pregnant lady on the planet: "In a masculine world dominated by death and violence, the space of the mother had come to seem utopian..." (p. 509). It seems that the movie itself creates 'a fantasy of society of scarcity in a region in which the once bounteous earth had mysteriously become unproductive', comparative to perhaps what Franco says about Marquez's women in '100 Years of Solitude'.
Interesting, yes?
Check out: Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Edited by Cory Nelson & Laurence Grossberg. Urbana Chicago: Univ. of Illinois Press, 1988. Particularly Jean Franco's essay Beyond Ethnocentrism: Gender, Power, and the Third World Intelligentsia.
Then we come to Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Oh my. *shivers*
My thoughts are all over the place with regards to this movie but I'll just write 'em down anyway. Watch it in Spanish because if someone decides to dub this in English, I have a feeling they'll kill certain essences with the translation.
This is one scary, weird, dark fairy-tale. Children die in this movie. There is blood, milk, honey and other foods in abundance and they are used in strange (but beautiful!) conjunction to life and death. The technicals were great; a few halts in editing but hey, a perfect movie would be boring. The filters they used for the camera lent the scenes mood, an incredible range of color, and symmetry.
I don't think I can wank this movie enough. Women aren't beat up as much as the men though they play a big part as 1) messengers, 2) mothers, and 3) healers. They're still confined to their usual roles but we do have a strong woman in Mercedes and the child.
The Capitan is strangely likeable, but that may be because I'm a big fan of President Roslin. He's sick in the head, partly because of the madness of war; he deals with his own inner demons and broods in the shadow of his father.
The main character writes her own book, creates her own doors into yet undiscovered worlds, as children are wont to do. It's interesting to note that the worlds she delves into, the horrendous tasks she undergoes, are contrasted to the world she actually lives in. Which is worse? Perhaps it's a commentary on how imagination cannot fathom the monstrosities of war.
The girl --strangely enough --is powerless to stop her own death (on the physical plain, at least).
In conjunction to this, there is a bounty of earth-images here: from the dead fig tree, to the rebels in the forest (and their informant being a woman), to the stone of the labyrinth itself. Interesting, really, how the masculine and the feminine are mixed and melded into powerful images. Men are associated with building, guns, military power, and technology. Women, to the mythic, the imaginary, the fairies.
Ultimately, we're met with the power of the imagination, of dreaming, and the age-old constructs that harbor nobility, self-sacrifice, and honor.
Now go watch it without your little siblings. It's a great piece of film-making and I loved it.