Pan’s Labyrinth : Salute
As the lights came on, I put on my beanie and slowly walked my way through the crowd towards the car. I turned the ignition on and waited… for the first of many tears to roll down.
For the last two hours, I was transported into a world where telling a story meant two words.
And Pan’s Labyrinth achieves that over and over again.
Forget the beautiful cinematography, the genius of a screenplay, the almost extinct way of telling a story, the amazing performances by the actors, the precision controlled special effects, the most sensitives touches in direction by Guillermo del Toro… forget them all… yet there will be something about Pan’s Labyrinth that will stay with you for a long time…
The hangover of having coming face to face with those two very words that reverberated over and over again during the movie… and now sit there across the table as you down another shot…
… Simplicity and Innocence…
Pan’s Labyrinth opens in 1944, in Spain, where the Fascist regime is fighting the rebels in the hills, with the Allies having landed in France to fight the Axis.
Amidst all this, is Ofelia and her expecting mother, who travel to Ofelia’s stepfather, Captain Vidal, who’s set up camp in the foothills and with his fascist and fundamentalist beliefs is out to exterminate the rebels fighting for freedom.
The story focuses on Ofelia’s journey that swings between fantasy (?) and reality – the desire to be in a land of princesses, fairies, happiness and peace and the harsh realities of greed, power, brutality and war.
I may be an ignorant fool for I haven’t found – read or viewed – any other book or a movie that may exist and can match the most brilliant way of integrating a fairy tale in modern times.
What Guillermo del Toro achieves by writing and directing the screenplay is nothing short a work of genius. It would indeed be worth watching to see if any of his future works can surpass what he has achieved in Pan’s Labyrinth. I have no big expectations from his immediate next venture which is Hell Boy 2.
The brilliance of Guillermo del Toro lay in the effortless way he pulls you into the story. Suddenly the world of fairies is so believable. The dangers of fighting demons is as real as seeing the Fascist army shooting the rebels right in the eye.
The fears and aspirations, dreams and smiles of Ofelia are a treat. You first apprehensively look at her, first when she enters the screen, but within no time you cheer her, pray for her… cry for her… laugh with her.
Sergi López as Capitán Vidal plays a character that is one of most balanced villainous characters written in a long time. On one hand his single minded fascist goals show him a fearless man while his inner fears of death and the looking at the broken watch again and again show his weaknesses.
Ariadna Gil as Ofelia’s mother and Maribel Verdú who inadvertently becomes Ofelia’s caring nanny, perform their parts with heart pulling sensitivity.
But Pan’s Labyrinth would not be Pan’s Labyrinth without Ivana Baquero, who plays Ofelia. Using brilliantly to portray the innocence through her eyes, this child, has the most hardened of adults, watching the movie, turning to putty in no time… me included. Here is one child actress that should deservedly be nominated for Best Actress at award functions.
For Pan’s Labyrinth sucks you in with Ofelia’s dreams and her innocent desires… and leaving you desperately praying that this is not a dream…
A Plus… a 21 gun salute.
Tags: Spanish
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
might just have to watch this one this week.. meant to go watch ‘volver’ yesterday.. ended up watching ‘the painted veil’ instead. now volver and PL are tempting me.. and i may just happily give in…
Man! I so damn want to watch this film! God knows when it’s releasing in India……
Hellboy was a strangely watchable movie (I hate the comic- book genre films), mostly because of del Toro’s vision. Leading to another question, why do only foreign directors know what to do with Ron Perlman? He is so amazing working with foreign directors…
Also, you can’t forget about Maribel Verd
damn my post is invisible
Pan’s labyrinth is not a ‘tragedy’. If people think it is then they missed the point(or maybe I refuse to oblige to other views). It’s visually stunning (though in a very dark way), profound and disturbing. Del toro’s perfect marriage of Fantasy with realism albeit the imagery and the young girl, Damn, couldn’t take her out of my mind! You will hate the Captain (Vidal), you would shoot his head pointblank again and again (Del Toro rocks indeed, with at least the characterizations). This movie fits the bill
>-, yeah it does..Definitely One of the best this year!^:)^
Coming to Oscars. I hope they don’t award ‘Pan’s labyrinth’ and follow their tradition. Wouldn’t surprise me if they award Deepa mehta’s crapfest, yeah none other than ‘H2O’ (wondering about those Indians who will claim it to be their ‘unofficial’ entry, lol! but seriously Schmucks! :p). Or maybe they will award Volver, Pedro Almodovar’s third oscar. Who knows?
I was curious if anyone wrote about this movie before. Your review was better than mine, which I was about to post here but now dropped the plan. Anyway, good review and a good movie.
Wow, how come I never read this?!Pan’s Labyrinth has to be seen over and over again. There cant be one appreciative and consumptive viewing for it.
I saw this film last week and was blown away. It took me some time to actually watch it as so much had been said about it all around.
I love comic book genre, Hellboy remains one of my favorites, and it was the same feeling that Del Torro’s film leave you with – a mix of belief and misbelief, a skewed dream, a fantastical foray into fantasy with some parts hidden away in the backyard.
Labyrinthe as sheer imagery for me, the comic book illustrations coming alive in a screen format, with their share of ‘ugliness’, eccentricity and shock value.
Genres shift like power gears and you go deeper in the experience with the maker’s vision. The film cannot go without the mention of its brilliant camerawork by Guillermo Navarro and grand music score by Javier Navarrete.
I am gonna get the DVD and analyse it properly, any takers?
btw, the film stands at a solid #41 on IMDB.