'Pan's Labyrinth' - Film comments and picspam

[winterspel]

Saturday night I went to see Pan's Labyrinth with friends. While all of us had wanted to see it, I think the other couple were extremely shell-shocked by it when we came out, so it wasn't until the car ride home with icajoleu that we were able to really talk about the movie.

Comments

[winterspel]

For me, the darkness wasn't in Ofelia's fantasies - it was in the reality of Captain Vidal's brutality. The fact that del Toro did not shift the camera from some of the horrific moments was really tough to watch - and you realize it almost immediately when he beats the peasant to death in front of his father with only a few swift blows to the face - only to find out that they were telling the truth, they really were just rabbit hunting, and he has absolutely no remorse for making a mistake and killing a man.

I like your points about how Ofelia's fantasies connected with the real world: but they also showed us that her fantasies weren't an escape - bad things would still happen. However, they gave her a sense of personal hope and purpose when in reality she was powerless.

I was really glad for the happy part of the ending because otherwise, the end is very harsh one. I think it was necessary and good that after all that practically unremitted pain and suffering, that something good should happen. I found the end hopeful (and besides, if in keeping with the fairy tale concept, there has to be a reward at the end), and I do think that del Toro deliberately engineered it to be such an ending since it dovetails perfectly with his visual style choices in the film.

I think you would have LOVED seeing this on a big screen. I don't think I would have wanted to see it any other way. It would lose so much...

[bunengshuode]

For me, I guess I've always seen reality as a bleak sort of place, so the Captain's cruelty wasn't that surprising. But when fantasy worlds turn brutal, they always do so in ways that are different and somehow worse than reality.

Ah, but is there always a reward at the end of a fairy tale? If you look at the Grimm Tales, and other Myths, a lot of those are meant to serve as warnings, and with Mercede's note about not trusting fawns, I sort of thought that was setting up for a desolate kind of ending.

^^;; Ah, well. There isn't really any place around here playing it anyways.