HOME |
DINING |
MOVIES |
LIVE SHOWS |
ARTS |
UPCOMING EVENTS
ARCHIVES |
ABOUT |
ADVERTISE |
CONTACT |
DISTRIBUTION
entertaining u newspaper: your weekly guide to entertainment
<<
Seen, Heard, Noted & Quoted
|
Main
|
Hurricane on the Bayou
>>
|
|
|
by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
A- Rated R 112 min
Mexican filmmaker Guillermo del Toro wrote and directed this dark Spanish (sub-titled) fantasy about a young girl, Ofelia (Ivana Baqueio) who travels with her mother Carmen (Anadna Gil) and adoptive father, Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez) to a rural area in Northern Spain in 1944. The country is thrown into Fascist repression after Franco’s victory. The living conditions are so oppressive in the rural military encampment, Ofelia escapes into a fantasy world located underground, where she has many adventures.
The film is similar to The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe, only much darker. The Fascist soldiers are like Nazis–cruel and murderous villains. Ofelia’s imaginary world is a metaphor for the greater forces of life and death. She is swept up into an Alice and Wonderland scenario that turns sinister as the jack-boot soldiers torture and kill the townspeople for no reason other than the soldiers think they work for the resistance.
To make matters worse, Ofelia’s mother Carmen is married to the Captain of the regiment stationed at her village. She is having a difficult pregnancy and he doesn’t care about Ofelia, only the unborn baby. Ofelia escapes into her underground world–a vast labyrinth-- where she meets the creature, Pan–half man, half-goat-- who guards the underworld. He tells her she is the lost princess of the Labyrinth and must complete three dangerous tasks to return to her real home. In so doing, she will learn the secret of her real life. The scenario implies that Ofelia’s real life is beyond her physical reality. Her life in rural Spain is only temporary–a fairytale-like parable to explain life and death
Del Toro, who is better known for his graphic novel adaptations, Blade 2 and Hellboy, has directed six feature films. This is his return to the supernatural fantasy of his 2001 The Devil’s Backbone. The story is set in the violent aftermath of the Spanish Civil War, showing how children survive the horrors of war by retreating into their imaginations.
While Ofelia is wrapped up in her underground world, one of the servant women, Mercedes (Maribel Verdu) is a spy for the resistance which is camped out near the garrison waiting for their chance to attack the compound. She passes messages to them. Her lover is the head of this rag-tag insurgent force. Of course, for her and the civilians living in the garrison, it’s a dangerous time. Franco’s soldiers are ruthless murderers who think nothing of killing the townspeople.
Ofelia must perform certain tasks that involve much danger from underworld creatures. She has magic chalk to draw doors of escape on the walls. Her death defying adventures in Pan’s Labyrinth are aimed at adults and older children. This scenario is quite violent with graphic scenes of soldiers killing innocent people and frightening creatures in Ofelia’s underground world. Del Toro mixes horror with fantasy with tons of fake blood to create his scenes. Although terrified by the labyrinth, Ofelia manages to complete most of her tasks. But, things are getting very dangerous at the garrison.
When Carmen has life threatening problems with her pregnancy, Mercedes acts as a step mother to Ofelia, knowing that if Carmen dies in childbirth, Ofelia’s life could be in danger because she is not Captain Vidal’s biological daughter and he would think nothing of killing her. So, Mercedes tries to protect Ofelia, who is always missing in the woods performing her tasks to return to her real family in another world.
The way Del Toro melds horror and fantasy is intriguing and at times shocking. In our world of escalating violence, Del Toro’s bloody fantasy doesn’t seem too far removed from our consensus reality. Murder and mayhem reign supreme, and movies are an escape. Indeed, Del Toro’s story transcends the mundane, giving the viewer a vision of life and death that, whatever one believes to be true, is a comforting spiritual awakening. In essence, what DelToro is saying is, the afterlife is our real world, and the physical reality is a fantasy play acted out for unknown reasons.
The genesis for director Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth goes back to the very beginning of his career, before he had even directed his first film. “At its roots, the script of Pan’s Labyrinth resembles my very first version of The Devil’s Backbone, and would have been my first film if I’d managed to find the budget necessary to make it at the time. Even if resemblances remain, the new version of Pan’s Labyrinth is despite everything, very different, my sentimental side having got the upper hand in the end.”
Although the movie is meant to provoke thought, it’s also about horror. Says del Toro “For me, fascism represents the ultimate horror and for this reason is an ideal subject through which to tell a fairy tale for adults. Because fascism is above all a form of the perversion of innocence, and thus of childhood. For me, fascism represents in some ways the death of the soul, as it forces you to make harrowing choices and leaves an indelible mark in the very depths of those who live through it. Thus the real “monster” in the film is Captain Vidal, played by Sergi López. A very real monster compared to those who lurk in the labyrinth. Fascism consumes you, inch by inch, not necessarily physically, but certainly spiritually. This notion was at the heart of The Devil’s Backbone, certainly, but I believe I have dealt with it better in Pan’s Labyrinth.”
As is often true in del Toro’s work, his main references in the movie come less from the films that have impressed him most profoundly, but more from literature and painting. “I have always been very influenced by the Spanish painter Goya, more specifically by his ‘black paintings’, which are, for me, his most impressive. The painting of Saturn devouring his son, for example, was one of the principle inspirations for the Pale Man, one of the main characters of the labyrinth. But for the general ambience, this time I drew most heavily on the works of the illustrator Arthur Rackham. I tried to reconnect with the perversity and very sexual content of his work. In fairy tales, all stories are either about the return to the womb (heaven, home) or wandering out into the world and facing your own dragon. We are all children wandering through our own fable.”
|
|
