movie: Pan's Labyrinth
So, Pan's Labyrinth. One of the more acclaimed recent movies, the one everyone was recently up in arms over not winning the Oscar's(or was it the Acandemy Awards? I keep little track of such things but remember a fair bit of talk on it at the time.) This is a movie that I thought I'd love, that I expected to love, that everything I'd heard about led me to believe I'd think it one of the best things ever. Sadly, I was barely interested enough to watch it all the way through.
I saw every twist, big and small coming. I thought the fantastical designs good, but very underused. Had the movie focused less on the war and more on Ofelia's adventures in the labyrinth, I suspect I would have enjoyed it much more than I did. This is a movie that should have both enchanted and disturbed me and awoken my senses of wonder and of sorrow, yet I felt nothing. For a movie with twists and turns, there are two main approaches to take. The first is to realize that your audience has a good chance of figuring things out ahead of time and making it about the journey, not the end. The second is to rely on the twists, big an small, depending on the audience not seeing them coming and being captivated. Unfortunately, when you rely on the second approach, if the audience does figure it out, the movie doesn't work half as well as it should. For example: I knew Ofelia would eat, and I knew what would happen when she did. There was no suspense or tension for me that entire sequence because I knew what would happen, but it felt like it relied on me not knowing. In addition, I knew Ofelia couldn't die with half the movie left, so I wasn't worried.
This is why I'm one of the few who vastly prefers The Illusionist to The Prestige. In both, I figured out the twists pretty early on. But The Illusionist makes it about how he did it and makes you want to see the end result...when you realize what he did is irrelevant. The Prestige relies on the rivalry and the twists. However, the rivalry also depends on the twists, and the audiences enjoyment relies heavily on figuring it out. As a result, I love The Illusionist but only like The Prestige, and then largely because of the leads.
Had Pan's Labyrinth taken the approach of an eery take on well loved tradition and myth, with the story about getting to the end you knew was coming, instead of relying on suspense and twists, I suspect I would have loved it. Instead, the only level it really worked for me on is visually, and even then only in the fantasy department.
That said, this is a step up(multiple steps, actually) from the last movie I expected to love but didn't, One Night With the King. I only made it about 25 minutes into that...then it was just background noise as I listened for the throne room scene to see how that was done. That, at least, was a good scene. Didn't compensate for the rest of what I saw and heard, but hey...
ETA: Forgot to say: All that said I CAN see why so many loved it as it wasn't a bad movie by any means, this is just about why it didn't work for me.
I saw every twist, big and small coming. I thought the fantastical designs good, but very underused. Had the movie focused less on the war and more on Ofelia's adventures in the labyrinth, I suspect I would have enjoyed it much more than I did. This is a movie that should have both enchanted and disturbed me and awoken my senses of wonder and of sorrow, yet I felt nothing. For a movie with twists and turns, there are two main approaches to take. The first is to realize that your audience has a good chance of figuring things out ahead of time and making it about the journey, not the end. The second is to rely on the twists, big an small, depending on the audience not seeing them coming and being captivated. Unfortunately, when you rely on the second approach, if the audience does figure it out, the movie doesn't work half as well as it should. For example: I knew Ofelia would eat, and I knew what would happen when she did. There was no suspense or tension for me that entire sequence because I knew what would happen, but it felt like it relied on me not knowing. In addition, I knew Ofelia couldn't die with half the movie left, so I wasn't worried.
This is why I'm one of the few who vastly prefers The Illusionist to The Prestige. In both, I figured out the twists pretty early on. But The Illusionist makes it about how he did it and makes you want to see the end result...when you realize what he did is irrelevant. The Prestige relies on the rivalry and the twists. However, the rivalry also depends on the twists, and the audiences enjoyment relies heavily on figuring it out. As a result, I love The Illusionist but only like The Prestige, and then largely because of the leads.
Had Pan's Labyrinth taken the approach of an eery take on well loved tradition and myth, with the story about getting to the end you knew was coming, instead of relying on suspense and twists, I suspect I would have loved it. Instead, the only level it really worked for me on is visually, and even then only in the fantasy department.
That said, this is a step up(multiple steps, actually) from the last movie I expected to love but didn't, One Night With the King. I only made it about 25 minutes into that...then it was just background noise as I listened for the throne room scene to see how that was done. That, at least, was a good scene. Didn't compensate for the rest of what I saw and heard, but hey...
ETA: Forgot to say: All that said I CAN see why so many loved it as it wasn't a bad movie by any means, this is just about why it didn't work for me.