Pan's Labyrinth
Feb. 13th, 2007 11:59 pmAfter a rather hectic start that eventuated in me missing the train, I went with
arccie to watch Pan's Labyrinth today.
It is perhaps one of the most emotive movies I have watched recently. The story was a rather poignant tale set in the backdrop of the Spanish civil war. It intermingles reality with fantasy resulting in a rather gothic fairytale and the details were woven so intricately that although it was easy to guess what would happen and how it would end, it still didn't fail to grab attention. The movie was quite graphic and a rather bleak vision of humanity. The scenes were rather brutal with lots of blood, violence and aggression, verging on horror with some of the fantastical scenes, particularly that of the flesheater. The way in which it was portrayed I felt was imaginative, the fantastical scenes rampant with that eerie quality. I find it quite interesting that the director chose not to cut out various scenes. Instead choosing to shock his audience from the start and building from that and continuing shock after shock after shock. The ending does invite discussion as to whether it was all the imaginings of a little girl or the allusions to magic were real.
It was a movie worth watching, memorable, although not one I could stomach watching over and over again.
A link to the official English language screenplay. http://www.panslabyrinth.com/downloads/screenplay/PansLabyrinthEnglishScreenplay.pdf
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It is perhaps one of the most emotive movies I have watched recently. The story was a rather poignant tale set in the backdrop of the Spanish civil war. It intermingles reality with fantasy resulting in a rather gothic fairytale and the details were woven so intricately that although it was easy to guess what would happen and how it would end, it still didn't fail to grab attention. The movie was quite graphic and a rather bleak vision of humanity. The scenes were rather brutal with lots of blood, violence and aggression, verging on horror with some of the fantastical scenes, particularly that of the flesheater. The way in which it was portrayed I felt was imaginative, the fantastical scenes rampant with that eerie quality. I find it quite interesting that the director chose not to cut out various scenes. Instead choosing to shock his audience from the start and building from that and continuing shock after shock after shock. The ending does invite discussion as to whether it was all the imaginings of a little girl or the allusions to magic were real.
It was a movie worth watching, memorable, although not one I could stomach watching over and over again.
A link to the official English language screenplay. http://www.panslabyrinth.com/downloads/screenplay/PansLabyrinthEnglishScreenplay.pdf