Pan's labyrinth
Mar. 6th, 2007 02:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alexandralI had a chance to see "Pan's labyrinth" in the National Museum of Media yesterday. Yay! I am glad I did because this was a film that is definitely worthy of the bid screen. I did a double – I also watched "Notes on Scandal", but I have to think more about the latter film before I can write.
Synopsis Film takes place in the fascist Spain of 1944. Ophelia is a step-daughter of psychotic fascist Captain. One day she meets a fairy and a faun and is told that she is a daughter of the King of Underworld. To claim her birthright she must complete 3 tests.
Strange and interesting film
My main impression throughout was that "Pan's labyrinth" is a film that in a large degree is influenced by "Narnia", only with the big doze of horror in it. "Pan's labyrinth" and "Narnia" share the same time-frame, the same visual representation , they share similar characters and they share the same themes originated from Christianity – sacrifice of the innocent blood, three thrones in the kingdom of Underworld, mother with the child, choices one has to make.. This was the weakest point in the film for me – that however unforgettable and interesting "Pan's labyrinth" was, it wasn't original. I am not trying to criticise, it is just what I felt.
But I did like the film very much!!! Mainly because there was an interesting thing going all throughout it – there were contradictions placed everywhere and in everything, I am not sure was this done intentionally or not, but the whole impression these contradictions left on me was very strange. It was like if the film was saying – Nothing, nothing is what it seems.
Contradictions or everything is not as it seems
I was trying to write down all contradictions I noticed:
1. War wasn't scary, but the Fairytale world was. War as presented in the film was beautified and happening somewhere beyond the horizon. Beautiful clouds of fire were coming up somewhere far far away behind the beautiful forest, and of course the good guys won and the good maiden Mercedes was saved and none of them died (apart from unlucky stuttering man). There were scenes of torture, but they never held any real horror for me somehow, they were too beautifully filmed to seem real.
On the other hand, Fawn, fairies, Root That You Must Feed with your own blood, Pale Man scared the life out of me. Even at the end, when we saw three thrones in the kingdom of Underworld the whole set up looked quite strange. May be because the way Ophelia's mother held the baby was as if baby wasn't alive. ** shudders **
2. Good ending felt like a tragic one. It was meant to be a good ending, right? But at the same time it felt that Ophelia is really dead and everything she sees is just her pre-death visions. Plus again, the kingdom of Underworld looked like it had some dark shadows behind the yellow light.
3. Good guys were presented with some darkness/shadow visually. Fawn was one of the scariest thing I have seen in fairytales. Mercedes also sometimes looked as if in another life she could have been a scary maid from some Gothic film. And the mandrake root under Ophelia's mother's bed looked so scary that I was afraid that it is going to harm the baby.
Cinematography Was gorgeous. It seemed to serve "Nothing is what it seems" theme very well, everything was drenched in a beautiful yellow light, but at the same time there were shadows, dark shadows everywhere. Amazing!
 |
Synopsis Film takes place in the fascist Spain of 1944. Ophelia is a step-daughter of psychotic fascist Captain. One day she meets a fairy and a faun and is told that she is a daughter of the King of Underworld. To claim her birthright she must complete 3 tests.
Strange and interesting film
My main impression throughout was that "Pan's labyrinth" is a film that in a large degree is influenced by "Narnia", only with the big doze of horror in it. "Pan's labyrinth" and "Narnia" share the same time-frame, the same visual representation , they share similar characters and they share the same themes originated from Christianity – sacrifice of the innocent blood, three thrones in the kingdom of Underworld, mother with the child, choices one has to make.. This was the weakest point in the film for me – that however unforgettable and interesting "Pan's labyrinth" was, it wasn't original. I am not trying to criticise, it is just what I felt.
But I did like the film very much!!! Mainly because there was an interesting thing going all throughout it – there were contradictions placed everywhere and in everything, I am not sure was this done intentionally or not, but the whole impression these contradictions left on me was very strange. It was like if the film was saying – Nothing, nothing is what it seems.
Contradictions or everything is not as it seems
I was trying to write down all contradictions I noticed:
1. War wasn't scary, but the Fairytale world was. War as presented in the film was beautified and happening somewhere beyond the horizon. Beautiful clouds of fire were coming up somewhere far far away behind the beautiful forest, and of course the good guys won and the good maiden Mercedes was saved and none of them died (apart from unlucky stuttering man). There were scenes of torture, but they never held any real horror for me somehow, they were too beautifully filmed to seem real.
On the other hand, Fawn, fairies, Root That You Must Feed with your own blood, Pale Man scared the life out of me. Even at the end, when we saw three thrones in the kingdom of Underworld the whole set up looked quite strange. May be because the way Ophelia's mother held the baby was as if baby wasn't alive. ** shudders **
2. Good ending felt like a tragic one. It was meant to be a good ending, right? But at the same time it felt that Ophelia is really dead and everything she sees is just her pre-death visions. Plus again, the kingdom of Underworld looked like it had some dark shadows behind the yellow light.
3. Good guys were presented with some darkness/shadow visually. Fawn was one of the scariest thing I have seen in fairytales. Mercedes also sometimes looked as if in another life she could have been a scary maid from some Gothic film. And the mandrake root under Ophelia's mother's bed looked so scary that I was afraid that it is going to harm the baby.
Cinematography Was gorgeous. It seemed to serve "Nothing is what it seems" theme very well, everything was drenched in a beautiful yellow light, but at the same time there were shadows, dark shadows everywhere. Amazing!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Re: Sorry for the late comment.
Date: 2007-03-09 05:25 pm (UTC)This is actually brilliant – I think I will go with this explanation for now, because this explains why her imaginary world was so dark. When someone creates an imaginary world they can go two ways, perhaps, one is to create a world totally different from your own and another is to create something influenced by your real world.
There are clues for both options (fairytale world is imaginary/not imaginary). On one hand, Ophalia’s step-father was able to see the mandrake Root, though we never saw it through his eyes, the Root he saw could have looked completely different.
On the other hand, Ophelia sees her dead mother in the Kingdom of Underworld.
It makes her ruining the dress to confront the toad even more sad and hurtful towards her mother. Not that Ophelia didn't truly believe she was fulfilling a task, but her mother was then right that she was acting out.
Even if she was trying to imagine things, Ophelia tried to preserve dress when she took it off. The dress was spoiled because of the wind and rain. Even though this connects with “rebellion” theory, Ophelia wasn’t trying to do it deliberately, I think…
Instead it's her dying creation that she succeeded in her tasks and believed herself to becoming a princess. When, really, she'd just been tragically and stupidly killed.
I think after much brain-raking this is what I think. It just the mood of the story was so tragic that this seems to be more fitting.