Pan's Labyrinth-(A) Sugar-free fantasy from Guellermo Del Toro. (Warning: This review has spoilers.) The reason I tend to shy away from most movies in the fantasy genre is because they come across as too sentimental. Look, for instance at The Dark Crystal, Harry Potter, Narnia- you get the idea. We forget that in the original Red Riding Hood, the big bad wolf killed and ate Red Riding Hood. I wonder if it isn't a purely English-speaking convention that our fantasy genre tends to be sugary-sweet with a soft centre? The only creator working in fantasy who even hints at the darker underpinnings of that other world I can think of is Neil Gaiman, and even he isn't immune to bouts of twee. (Yeah, there's Clive Barker, but he seems to have devolved into a Gaiman-lite fantasist...)
Not so with Del Toro. He has an eye for the grotesque and an understanding that living in an inner world carries its own cost. (I want to compare him to Goya, but that comparison's a little forced...) It's set in 1944 Spain, near the end of the Spanish Civil War. A brutal captain in Franco's army has taken his old tailor's widow as his wife. The woman's daughter, Ofelia, is a bright ten year old who retreats into her own personal fantasy world to deal with these abrupt changes in her life. Ultimately, her fantasy life takes over her real life with tragic consequences.
In the context of the movie, I can't say that I blame her. (A while back, I read up a shitload on the Spanish Civil War, curious why there wasn't a lot of fiction about it-besides Hemingway, that is. Turns out it was a fucking depressing pointless bloodbath, historically speaking.) The rebels fighting the army in the nearby woods seem to be hopelessly outnumbered and out-gunned. The captain reveals himself as a brutal, amoral monster. (He's only interested in his pregnant new wife's child, not her or Ofelia.) For a girl like Ofelia, this is a perfect metaphor for a classic fairy tale, which she proceeds to write herself into. A fairy princess, trapped in the world above ground, is tasked by a faun to perform three feats to test her courage. If she passes, she gets to return to her place at the side of her true parents.
Here's where Del Toro really shines. His fantasy setting is both visually rich (almost claustrophobic) and unsettling. He understands how much to show and how much to just suggest an inner world, and stimulate the viewer's imagination. It's a rare case where tragedy (Ofelia's death) brings about a happy ending. (Ofelia's dying thoughts are of the princess reunited with the King and Queen of the fairy underworld.)
Children of Men-(A+) So is there something in Mexico that gives their filmmakers that much of a push to turn out such great films? I mean, the month isn't over yet and already the bar's been set pretty high in terms of high quality film making. Looking at Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and Curanon's Children of Men, you'd be inclined to think so, wouldn't you? Consider the spin one can take on Children of Men: "In a world with no children for 18 years... One woman creates life... And only one man can save us all..." Put in the hands of a hack like Joel Schumacher, you can already see the three-legged dog named Lucky and the teary-eyed closeups of the principal cast members, all calculated to move us to tears.
Fortunately, in the more than capable hands of Alfredo Curanon, this sci-fi thriller defies expectations. He crams it with so much detail the first thing I thought upon leaving the theater was, "Damn. Now I gotta get the DVD!" There's a clever subtext in here alluding to totalitarianism not just in the presentation of the prison camp in Bexhill (Notice how the bus we're in shows the midwife being hooded, to a row of dead bodies. I'm not sure, but I think I caught a visual reference to that famous photo of the hooded guy in Abu Ghraib in there as well) but in the dingy London streets in the beginning. Is England truly the last bastion of civilization in this world? I somehow don't think it is... Notice the reference to the death of "Baby Diego", the youngest person in the country, stabbed to death at a take-out, and its comparison to the public grieving of Lady Diana.
Clive Owen (great here) looks appropriatly worn as the activist turned bureaucrat dragged into protecting the young prostitute-turned Madonna. There's a lot of gunfire in this movie, but he doesn't fire off any rounds himself, does he? The danger here is not only from the government forces, but from the rebels wanting to use the mother for their own ends. Owen is in the dark as much as we are, running purely on instinct. In keeping his characters from becoming icons (Owen is as frightened and confused as Kay the reluctant mommy) and keeping the action at documentary level, (the car chase near the beginning is among the best I've seen, as the nine-minute take where we hurry through a combat zone) Curanon's movie hits its mark. Best line:(said during a firefight)
Theo (Owen) "How's the baby?" Kay "ANNOYED!!"
Out of curiosity, who here thought the movie was exactly one minute too long?
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