A Maze and Confused (Pan's Labyrinth (2 DVDs))

Member Name: thedevilinme

Product:	Pan's Labyrinth (2 DVDs)
Date:	13/01/08 (92 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Detailed work

Disadvantages: No heart

So, 'Pans Labyrinth, the big "must see" foreign film of 2007, if you read and listen to the professional critics, or at least it was according to the BBCs unflinching film critic Mark Kermode, and like his similar hype for History of Violence and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, this again falls short of that built up universal expectation. Now it's not a bad film, indeed there are many beautiful and telling moments in it that garnered six Oscar nominations, bagging three statues, but it's not what you're hoping for. In fact I would steer you more towards the director of this in Guillermo Del Torros previous foreign language film on his beloved Spain during the civil war years called the 'Devils Backbone'. Where Pans Labyrinth falls down for me is the fact it's just too solemn a tale and lacks that heart most Latin films rely on to make you care for them, that vivacious texture that they can get to shine through any narrative, Life is Beautiful an example of. Pans Labyrinth just doesn't shine like a fairytale should, however grim the intention.

-Cast-

Ivana Baquero ... Ofelia
Sergi López ... Capitán Vidal
Mirabel Verdú ... Mercedes
Doug Jones ... Fauno / Pale Man
Ariadna Gil ... Carmen Vidal
Álex Angulo ... Dr. Ferreiro
Manolo Solo ... Garcés
César Vea ... Serrano
Roger Casamajor ... Pedro
Ivan Massagué ... El Tarta
Gonzalo Uriarte ... Francés

-Narrative-

It's fascist Franco's Spain in the year of 1944, the few remaining freedom fighters driven into the wooded hills by the feared Bluecoats, now running great chunks of the country. We join Captain Vidal (Sergi López), commandeer of an army outpost that borders the Andalusian hills, his troops rounding up the final dregs of the resistance. Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her heavily pregnant mom Carmen (Adrianna Gil) are about to join Captain Vidal, Carmen's husband to be, a partnership not made out of love but for financial reasons, an arranged marriage if you will.

In the hills and forest around the barracks the freedom fighters regularly lurk, ready to raid their stores of food and logistics, housekeeper Mercedes (Mirabel Verdú) not the only enemy sympathizer within the complex. Captain Vidal is an unspeakable monster of a man, the symbolic bullet to the head the captains chosen method of dispatch for the bandits or those who betray him, as used in real life by the Bluecoats in the Franco era to strike fear into the people, that symbolism ever present in the movie. But Ofelia finds rare solace in this place, her mom's pregnancy complications meaning she needs a secret place to hide from her fears. The barracks is near to an old Gothic ruin of unknown age and origin, a twisty maze or passages and compartments that comes to life when Ofelia enters. At the heart of the labyrinth lives a mystical Faun, a horned goblin that believes Ofelia is along lost princess who is ready to return to her kingdom, but must be pure of heart before she does, the Faun offering her the challenge of three task of great courage to prove she is who he thinks she is, so Ofelia then able to enter the portal of the underground world that will take her away from all the pain, if she completes the tasks before the next full Moon.

Meanwhile Vidal is becoming more and more suspicious and intolerant of those around him, Carmen's deteriorating pregnancy making him irritable, brutally taking it out on his subordinates. When the Fawn offers Ofelia a remedy to help her moms bleeding and her health starts to improve, we, the audience, also begin to believe in this other world of magic and mystery. But as the body count rises you fear the film can only have a bad ending as Ofelia battles to complete her three tasks before the feted full moon.

-Conclusions-

As Gothic nightmare-fantasies go this is all very fine. The director skillfully weaves fairytale with fantasy, symbiotic in lending meaning to the story about loss of country, loss of family and loss of life, keeping you enthralled throughout, contemplating both an innocent child's eye view of things alongside our interpretations of the films adult narrative, both kept apart by slight of hand.

Ivan Baqueros performance as the lonely young girl trying to survive her horrible war torn adult world through fantasy is admirable, Latin child actors always mesmerizing on the big screen compared to their more uncouth North European opposite's. But the problem is the mystery the film develops early on doesn't blossom as much as you hoped it would, the forest not giving you that haunting feeling. If you ever go to a forest and lose site of the road or path it always a spooky experience. After all it is a fairytale. Its grim ending doesn't help things either and you always feel when watching Del Torro's movies that they are really about his pain over our entertainment, although you suspect that's is the point of the movie, something older Spanish people who suffered fascism relating to. Nerveless it's a quality piece of cinema and worthy of its plaudits, although it's not my best foreign movie of 2006.

-Imdb.com rating-

8.50/10.0 (80,098 votes)

-Awards-

It won three technical Oscars from its six nominations. It also won numerous gongs around the world, including three BAFTAS, one for Best Foreign Film.

http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0457430/awards

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RuN-TiMe 102 minutes

This now available to rent in Blockbusters on their weekly £3 per film deal. If you rent two you get one free.
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Summary: Spains therapy..