movies: pan's labyrinth

innocence has a power evil cannot imagineContinuing the theme from yesterday of "movies we should have gone to see while they were out on the big screen" comes the other movie I grabbed at the video shop last night, Pan's Labyrinth (aka The Labyrinth of the Faun).

From the few bits and pieces I read about it I thought it might have been too violent to go to with Ma, so we never went. Sadly, it's not really THAT violent or THAT "horror"... granted I have a slightly skewed vision of these things, but I think Ma might have been alright with it.

I'm fond of Guillermo del Toro's stuff... Hellboy, Blade II... well actually that's it... although I think I saw Cronos once upon a time, but I didn't know anything about the director back then.

But he has this dark fantasy bent that really appeals to me.

Add to that Doug Jones who I loved as Abe Sapien in Hellboy and you've hit a bunch of my favourite buttons.

I will admit that I kind of went back and forth on the whole Spanish Civil War plotline... I can see why he used it, but there were times when I was thinking "yeah, yeah, get back to the fantasy plot". I also know that a lot of the symbolism that Guillermo talks about in the special features on the second disc were lost on me, but then I guess they're supposed to be the first time you see the movie... it's nice to know it's there though.

It's possibly a little heavy going in a few spots (mostly the stuff set in the real world), but all in all not bad.

yani's rating: 3 fauns out of 5

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I was lucky enough to see it in the cinema .. one of the best films I have seen this year, totally captivating.
A little violent in parts, but the story would not be the same without it.

Bri

Anonymous said...

And now the other side of the coin...I saw it in the theater and found it so incredibly awful (I remember blogging about it at the time) I almost asked for my money back. One of the WORST films I've seen in the past year.

yani said...

Okay, that's interesting Alex... now I have to go and find your post about it to find out WHY you thought it was so awful...