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Pan's Labyrinth
Pan's Labyrinth.
So I decided to get this movie from an underground source. Because, I thought it would be a nice movie to watch with the family during the holidays. I was wrong about the fact that I thought that it was a happy movie. The cinematography is beautiful, the sound and music are superb. I would recommend this movie to anyone that is at least 17 years old. Why that age you ask, because I think that at the age the audience will be mature enough to understand the deep meaning of the movie. It is indeed a fair tale for grown ups. The language barrier is totally broken by the sublime subtitles that follow the narrative. I speak Spanish and they are not dub titles, they are indeed a good representation of the Spanish ideas into the English language.
The director clearly wanted to express his art and forget about about tittles if only because of his last action at the end of the movie.
This movie is not for everyone, and even though it was not a happy go lucky movie. This movie was perfect to enjoy it with my parents during the holidays.
97/100
Erwin R.
So I decided to get this movie from an underground source. Because, I thought it would be a nice movie to watch with the family during the holidays. I was wrong about the fact that I thought that it was a happy movie. The cinematography is beautiful, the sound and music are superb. I would recommend this movie to anyone that is at least 17 years old. Why that age you ask, because I think that at the age the audience will be mature enough to understand the deep meaning of the movie. It is indeed a fair tale for grown ups. The language barrier is totally broken by the sublime subtitles that follow the narrative. I speak Spanish and they are not dub titles, they are indeed a good representation of the Spanish ideas into the English language.
The director clearly wanted to express his art and forget about about tittles if only because of his last action at the end of the movie.
This movie is not for everyone, and even though it was not a happy go lucky movie. This movie was perfect to enjoy it with my parents during the holidays.
97/100
Erwin R.
Comments
The trailer reminds me a lot, both in story and artwork, of Mirrormask, a family movie I am completely in love with (despite the poorest script Neil Gaiman has ever written, and some obvious problems with an inexperienced director, very low budget and short production time).
I love The City of Lost Children too, by the way.
Anyhow, I will give this movie an A+
I would recommend anyone to watch it. Yes anyone, well not children under 18 because I think this is rated R. I would say this what Brave Story need to become a classic :P
The CG was jarring in places but mostly very good.. The actual art direction was gorgeous. The character designs of the faery folk were very well done. That monster in the second task? I am still scared. I fear I will have nightmares about it. Got damn.
The movie was more violent that I'd expected. That would be fine but it felt...strangely placed. It had to be there or else the movie would have become a children's fairytale and to illustrate how horrific the Father's character was but it still felt a little misplaced to me. It just reaches a point where there's so much blood and violence about the place that the original reason for it is weakened.
Character development wasn't really there. It was implied about halfway through the movie that the captain hated himself (suffers a form of depression, maybe?) but it wasn't elaborated on and was left hanging. I didn't really feel for his character but I wanted to. I felt similarly about all the characters with one of two exception. A number of the characters were also stupid to the point of infuriating (So...why did she marry him?). Might not have been as bad were it not for some mediocre acting as well. I could elaborate but I don't want to spoil the movie.
The story itself was a little boring. You could see the ending coming from a mile away. The ending sequence didn't hit any of the right notes with me. It seemed empty. The moral of the story was either convoluted or just not there. Kind of felt like no one had actually sat down and said "Right. THIS is the message we want people to get". Really hollow.
You should see the movie just for that second task monster though. Maybe just watch that bit off the DVD/internets.
Keep in mind that I'm an extremely harsh critic.
I, on the other hand, LOVED it. I thought it was amazing, I think the reason that the character development and non fairytale part of the story can seem a bit shallow is that this film is all about the context. I would recommend you reading up on the Spanish Civil War and Franco's Spain before you go. I studied it last year so I really enjoyed the complexities of that storyline.
Anyway, I would give it an A, some of the violence was a bit over the top.
Oh and I assumed she's married him because he raped her, or just wanted her and she had no choice. Remember this is 1940s fascist Spain. Not so much of the rights for the single mums.
I really did love Pan's Labyrinth, but I'm sorry, Letters was such a masterfully crafted film. It managed to portray the viewpoint of a faction in WWII that is often vilified without falling into stereotypes or whitewashing the situation.
On subject though, woo-hoo for Pan's Labyrinth
Thanks man, now I have something to do on my day off.
I would recommend this to anyone that enjoy a movie with good story telling, awesome special effect, and great cinematography. :P
I loved the film from start to finish. There aren't really any major flaws I can point out; I can only nitpick. I especially loved the ambiguity of whether the supernatural experience Ofelia was experiencing was real. Even though the plot switches back and forth between a grim fairy tale world and a brutal world of reality, it flowed together really well. The cinematography had a lot to do with the cohesion of the film, and I'm glad it got an Oscar for that (though I still think Children of Men had better cinematography).
Guillermo Del Toro needs to screw Hellboy and its sequels and stick to stuff like Pan's Labyrinth.
What the @#&;!#% ? Are you serious? $5 million? I don't believe that.
But so many movies try so hard to create a modern fairy tale and if you can see the effort, it hasn't succeeded. Stardust for instance, while enjoyable, tried a little bit too hard. Where as a tale like Princess Bride succeeded near flawlessly, even though it didn't take itself seriously, and maybe even because of that.