 |
 |
 |
 |
Pan's Labrinth
Director: Guillermo del Toro
Cast: Ivana Baquero, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú
In Spanish w/ subtitles
Rated: R
112 minutes
Wow… Whoa. It’s now the day after and still, wow.
It has been far too long since I’ve been able to, with all my heart, recommend a phenomenal film. Well my friends, here it is.
Pan’s Labrynth is a fairy tale. Wait, the Disney Generation might get the wrong impression. This isn’t a bastardized sugary snack film with a little girl and her friends living happily ever after. No, this is a fairytale in the classics sense where, more often than not, lessons learned thru horrific deaths. There’s a princess, magical creatures, spectacular fantasy worlds, and buckets of hard core reality busting upside your head.
One point I’d be remiss to omit: This movie is graphically violent and whoa Nelly is this movie not Hollywood. It’s not popcorn movie violence that we’ve been so nicely de-sensitized to.
This is beatings, shootings, and the most cringing ‘self-stitching’ scene since Stallone in “First Blood”. Interesting to note, the film is split between “real life”; a fascist outpost in the Spanish civil war, and Baquero's fantasy world where she's a reincarnated princess. The violence however is completely contained within the real life segments.
Since this isn’t Hollywood there is no way to predict
what was going to happen, and that is great. Kudos to our mighty theatre
for taking the chance and grabbing some foreign film gold. I used to have
an absolute favorite ‘dark fairytale’ movie and it was Jean-Pierre
Jeunet’s “City of Lost Children” Now, I’m excited
to say: I have two.
.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |