Pan's Labyrinth

[donco6]

If you haven't seen it, you just MUST. It's one of those films you just think about in your head for weeks afterward. I see it won two Oscars already - and well deserved.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

1. It was the most haunting and lyrical film I have seen in years. It is going to forever be a classic.

[mucifer]

31. Spoiler alert

I think when she died she did go to heaven. But, it's all open to interpretation.

[Olney Blue]

2. What is it about?

[donco6]

6. It's two parallel stories.

One is set in the real world - post revolution Spain with Franco in charge. His officers are stationed in the border forests to hunt down rebels. One of these officers is married to the mother of Ofelia - our heroine. Ofelia reads the situation correctly - the officer is an evil, violent man, and she will have nothing to do with him. So she escapes when she can into the other world - a world where she is actually an underworld princess who has taken a sojourn to the upperworld and lost her way. The story juxtaposes the violence in her real life (which is considerable - NOT for the squeamish!), and the frightening tasks she's given to prove her worthiness as a princess.

It's just a fascinating movie - every single scene is magical, moving or both.

[Olney Blue]

9. I will definitely have to see it. I haven't been to many movies lately.

Thank you for the wonderful description. :hi:

[TahitiNut]

15. That's a remarkably succinct and cogent plot synopsis!

Bravo. :applause: (I'm now strongly inclined to see it.)

[donco6]

21. Wow!

<blush> Thanks.

[NashVegas]

35. Oh, Do It TN

Very good stuff.

[rurallib]

8. little girl caught in the spanish civil war

at least that is what i figured the backdrop to be. But it had several threads concerning life and honor etc.

[booley]

11. In a nut shell

It's set during the end of the spanish Civil war when the fascist had won.

A litttle girl travels with her mother to live with her step father, a brutal Captain fighting rebels in the mountains.

and then she meets a fairy and a faun that tell her she is a lost princess. but first she must pass three tests to prove herself.

The way they combine the fairy tale with the 'real world ' events of the civil war was brilliant. It's both sad and terrifying and beautiful at the same time.

It's especially relevant today. I love the doctors words..'i can't just obey without question. Only you can do that, captain"

[Olney Blue]

14. Thanks, booley. Is the fairy tale world her way of coping with the

horrors of the war?

[donco6]

17. Not really the war, so much as her situation.

Her stepfather is a brutal, patriarchal, a-hole, and her mother is pregnant with his child, and very ill. The Captain moves them out to the frontier against the doctor's advice simply because he wants the child born in his presence. Ofelia recongizes her stepfather's character immediately, and escapes to the labyrinth to get away from him.

[booley]

45. It depends on your POV

A cynic probbaly would say that the fairies were all in her head. and so when she died it was just a delusion to giver her death meaning in own mind.

Which is really depressing.

Personally I think the fairies were real. There are too many coincidences, like how her mother got immediatly better when ofelia put the mandrake under her bed (and then immediatly worsened when the mandrake was destroyed) and the book's fortelling her mother's illness and how ofelia was able to travel through walls to get by the guards outside her room.

OF course a cynic may say that the captain didn't see the Faun ofelia was talking to is proof that she was just delusional.

But in the legends, Fairies typically can hide in plain sight, only allowing those to see them that they wish to be seen by.

The film is brilliant in it's ambivelency. It doesn't make it concrete. Every one sees something a little different.

Hope I didn't give it all away for you.

[Divernan]

32. The doctor refused to assist the Captain in torturing prisoners.

thus putting to shame every single one of the horrific psychologists, psychiatrists and physicians who have assisted in the training of US soldiers or mercenaries in torture techniques or in "treating" the victims of same at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and the dozens of foreign torture sites/torture planes. Not to mention each and every professional medical association which has not come forward to condemn Bush for this matter.

As Maya Angelou has said, each of us should have a point beyond which we will NOT go - regardless of the pressure, wealth, etc., used as inducements.

[DesertRat]

3. It will probably win best foreign film too

I thought it was an incredible film, but a little too gory for my taste.

[donco6]

12. There were scenes I had to cover my eyes, fer sure. n/t

[asthmaticeog]

4. It's a magnificent film.

I'm not watching the Oscars, glad to know it's getting some love.

[rurallib]

5. I was so engrossed in it that I totally forgot that it had subtitles.

[donco6]

10. Me too.

It only took five minutes or so. But I very much want to see it again to make sure I didn't miss anything while I was reading. It's just so visually rich . . . you don't want to miss a second.

[rurallib]

16. ditto - can't remember ever doing that before.

[Hissyspit]

7. It owes a lot to "Spirit of the Beehive."

Not to take away from "Pan's Labyrinth" (the real title in Spanish is "The Faun's Labyrinth"); it is a very good movie with a strong message about fascism, but theme, plot and setting have much in common with "Spirit of the Beehive" from 1973:

"In Castile c.1940, a travelling movie theatre brings James Whale's b/w film classic Frankenstein (1931) to a village. (Admission 1 peseta for adults, 2 reales for children.) Two young girls, Isabel and Ana, determine to find the Monster."

[Lautremont]

38. Spirit of the Beehive is an amazing movie, to be sure.

I think Del Toro has acknowledged it as an inspiration - or maybe I imagined that happening in some magical labrynthnine world.

[Glimmer of Hope]

13. This has been on hold in my Netflix que for months. Maybe they will get more copies now.

[Atman]

20. It's not they don't have enough copies...it hasn't been released to DVD yet

But thanks for the reminder...I just added it to my queue.

[Glimmer of Hope]

30. Aww...thank you!

[DesertRat]

24. I didn't think it was out on DVD yet

:shrug:

[judaspriestess]

18. my fiance just saw it alone on Friday

I don't know if I can handle the graphic violence.

[donco6]

19. There's no question about that.

I was glad no one had mistakenly brought a kid to the movie when I saw it. They'd have been scared witless.

[marzipanni]

43. What age kid do you mean?

I have a feeling my 12-year-old son would really like it...should I wait and rent it in a couple of years?

[donco6]

46. Well, I'm 47 and there were parts I had to hide my eyes.

So, I dunno . . . I'd probably wait, but you know your kid better.

[Ian_rd]

22. Spoiler Alert! Don't read this unless you've seen it!

So, do any of you think she actually earned a place as Princess? I think it was all in her head. I think she went crazy and delusional as a means to deal with the negative and chaotic forces around her.

Everything about the movie was top-notch and beautiful: The acting, the art, the script. Del Toro is one of my favorites working. Hellboy, anyone?

[DesertRat]

26. spoiler alert

No, I think she created the fantasy world as a means of escape and died in the end.

[donco6]

27. I'm not sure it mattered.

She certainly proved herself a princess by carrying out the tasks, regardless of whether they were real or not. I think in that sense, everything that happened to her was "real."

[riverwalker]

23. DVD Release Date May 15, 2007

can't wait

[Southsideirish]

25. I'll never forget it but I never want to see it again. Its magnificent but I can't

watch it a second time .

[Atman]

28. It bums me out that two movies I really want to see are so violent

I'd love to see Apocolypto, too, but I'm just one of those people that feels no need to subject myself to deliberate gross-outs just because you can. Technology and special effects seem to be used for ever-more-realistic shock effects when many of the films could stand well without it. Save that shit for the slasher movies. I'd love to see these two movies, but I just don't need to see balls being cut off, hearts ripped out, head split open. Fuck that shit.

That said, I'll wind up watching both of them...and turning away through half of 'em.

.

[donco6]

29. I wouldn't call the violence in "Labyrinth" *gratuitous*.

It really has to be there to show just how awful things are in Ofelia's real world. How far would you go to escape it?

But yeah, it's difficult to watch certain scenes.

[fujiyama]

34. The violence in Pan's Labrynth isn't gratuitous

but is there to show the true brutality of the main character's world. Plus, it's worth remembering that this film is reflecting the horror of fascist Spain.

It isn't an easy film to watch. I found it somewhat depressing, but incredibly engrossing.

[donco6]

33. Now up to three - Cinematography.

Wow.

[Divernan]

36. Why the hell did some moderator move this thread to the Lounge?

It is discussing the news that a powerful anti-war film has JUST won several academy awards.
Meanwhile, dozens of other award-related threads have not been moved.

[Dover]

37. VERY good question. There are tons of non-political Oscar posts in GD

But this one gets moved. WHY?

[wildhorses]

39. i myself have often wondered how thread placement is decided. about

this film was anybody else saying quietly to themselves...please, don't call out to the captain when he took the baby away from her...if she had not called out he would not have turned around and shot her...then she could've lived to fight him again another day.

i so wanted her NOT to die but, i was glad she got to be a princess.

i would say this is the 21st century's 'wizard of oz'

i loved it...so violently beautiful and such wonderfully brave and sad heroine:loveya:

[donco6]

47. Got me. n/t

[Shine]

40. I want to see it, but I hear it's incredibly violent.

hence the R rating.

I'll definitely check it out, though.

[Dover]

41. Well........it's over pretty quick if that's any help.

And I've seen alot worse in films.

[Dover]

42. Can't believe this movie didn't win for Best Foreign Language Film

Of course I didn't see the German film that DID win. What was the title of that film? Anybody see that can make a comparison?

[leftofthedial]

44. great movie

I can't wait to see it again

[MedleyMisty]

48. I loved it

And it's honestly not all that violent (there certainly isn't hearts being torn out or any of that stuff - that must have all been in Apocalypto?), and what violence there is should be there, because it's a film about war and fascism.

As for taking kids to see it - I'd be okay with it, but then my parents took me to see Platoon when I was five and we also watched Roots around then. And at nine I was reading survivor accounts of the Holocaust, complete with members of the Sonderkommando breaking the necks of kids who survived the gassing because that was a better death than suffocating in the mass grave.

I attribute a lot of my belief in love and compassion to that early grounding in what humans can do to each other when they're full of hate and fear.