March 21, 2007
Beatings, stabbings, shootings, amputations, miscarriages...such is the fare of the non-fairytale world of Pan's Labyrinth. And in the too-rare moments of fantasy, there's a spewing frog and a baby-eating beast that bites the heads off fairies.
Conning you with a fairytale content that isn't the film's focus, this is more Schindler's List than The Neverending Story or Narnia. A young girl goes with her pregnant mother to stay with her step-father, a captain of a Fascist outpost in Civil War Spain. All he wants is a son.
With a head full of fairytales, little Ofelia finds her way into the Labyrinth of Pan, a faun who claims Ofelia is the long-lost princess of the underworld. If she passes three tests, she'll regain her identity. Meanwhile, up top, guerillas - aided by a spy in the Captain's camp - are waging a losing war. And woe betide anyone who's caught. Torture's too good.
The stuff of nightmares, Pan's Labyrinth is shot through with fear, cruelty and visceral violence. Director Del Toro presumably intends the dark fantasy to convey the girl's way of dealing with the dawning disaster of her everyday world. It never hangs together though.
Del Toro's emphasis is always on the torture and terror above ground. Close-ups of wounds, blood and fear betray Del Toro's primary fascination with our gut-reaction to gore. In Blade II it was appropriate. Here it detracts. David Cronenberg or might have pulled it off or Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam. But Del Toro stitches two stories together - and names his film after the lesser half.
Surprisingly bold, it upends the traditional happy-ever-after ethos of fairytales and fables. Brutal and humourless, Pan's Labyrinth is the cinematic equivalent of a bad dream. If there's a point, that's probably it.
Conning you with a fairytale content that isn't the film's focus, this is more Schindler's List than The Neverending Story or Narnia. A young girl goes with her pregnant mother to stay with her step-father, a captain of a Fascist outpost in Civil War Spain. All he wants is a son.
With a head full of fairytales, little Ofelia finds her way into the Labyrinth of Pan, a faun who claims Ofelia is the long-lost princess of the underworld. If she passes three tests, she'll regain her identity. Meanwhile, up top, guerillas - aided by a spy in the Captain's camp - are waging a losing war. And woe betide anyone who's caught. Torture's too good.
The stuff of nightmares, Pan's Labyrinth is shot through with fear, cruelty and visceral violence. Director Del Toro presumably intends the dark fantasy to convey the girl's way of dealing with the dawning disaster of her everyday world. It never hangs together though.
Del Toro's emphasis is always on the torture and terror above ground. Close-ups of wounds, blood and fear betray Del Toro's primary fascination with our gut-reaction to gore. In Blade II it was appropriate. Here it detracts. David Cronenberg or might have pulled it off or Tim Burton or Terry Gilliam. But Del Toro stitches two stories together - and names his film after the lesser half.
Surprisingly bold, it upends the traditional happy-ever-after ethos of fairytales and fables. Brutal and humourless, Pan's Labyrinth is the cinematic equivalent of a bad dream. If there's a point, that's probably it.