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23 January 2007
Pan's Labyrinth Holy crap. See it. Now. →[More:]Best film I've seen in a long time. Creepy. Haunting. Spanish. Ummm....creepy.
Disappointed, huh? I went in cold. No reviews, no expectations. (Well, to be fair, diminished expectations, since I hated "Hellboy." (Okay, maybe not "Hated", but...not my thing)) This, though. Wow.
Oh, and the warning about the violence and gore is accurate. (Even though SOME of the gore is oddly...not gory...particularly some of the gunshot wounds.)
The local Odeon had it for a week and I missed it there. However, our local arts centre, a converted church, is showing it in March. It's so great sitting in an old converted church with people who really want to be there to see the film. I saw Sophie Scholl there last year and there people in the audience in traditional Jewish costume, something I've never seen in my town. I didn't even know we had a Jewish community, but apparently we do.
Pan's Labyrinth is stunning, brutal and beautiful. And yes, it is incredibly violent in parts, though perhaps we need to find a better word than gore. Gore implies gratuity, and none of what is shown is presented for pure shock. Instead, Del Torro uses violence to establish character (particularly in the case Vidal, as I've rarely seen evil more convincing) and to remind us that reality can be just as nightmarish as anything we imagine.
I guess I'm just saying, don't be swayed away. See it.
It got six Oscar nominations, including Best Foreign Language Film. I think it should have gone into the Best Picture Category. Weird nominations this year. Peter O'Toole?
Hopefully spoiler-free, but I will mention some generalities:
I can definitely see that he tried to use the violence as part of the message. I didn't find it that convincing. Clearly the Captain was intended to be over-the-top, and pure evil. It is a fairy tale after all. I just didn't buy him. I think the movie would have been improved if the violence were toned down.
Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie. The last fairy-tale type movie I saw was Lady in the Water, and this was a thousand times better than that piece of crap. I did have high expectations because I was told it was so amazing. I would rate it 8/10, where I was expecting a 9.2/10.
I saw it in LA. Absolutely incredible. Nthing everyone's comments about violence--don't take the kids; it's not a Disney fairy tale. But it is a fairy tale of the oldest kind, the Grimm kind.
Wonderful film. It definitely deserved a best picture nomination. The Academy was not very adventurous with its picks this year. (I mean, I thought Little Miss Sunshine was amusing and all, but of the two dozen or so movies I saw last year, it wouldn't even crack my top ten.)
YES! loved it, loved it, loved it. Go see it if you can. Amazing. I had no expectations though, so don't read any reviews. Go in cold. Gorgeous. Stunning. Powerful.
YES! loved it, loved it, loved it. Go see it if you can. Amazing. I had no expectations though, so don't read any reviews. Go in cold. Gorgeous. Stunning. Powerful.
I saw it. I did. I cried in the end. Didn't you? How could you not? It is wonderful. By far, very far, very high and very out, the best fucking movie of the year.
A fantastic story, full of allegories and references to certain present situations (no?), Ofelia, a fusion of Alice and Dorothy, sent in Hell. I particularly liked a small but deliberate and extremely well done cinematic smack on the Church's complicity (I almost cheered). It was very violent, indeed, a certain scene now defines the new movie-thrill for me. You know, the one with the doctor.
The little girl is awesome, yes amro, I rarely like little kid roles, but she did an excellent job. A++mazing.
And it was full house tonight which applauded heartily in the end. There is a certain kind of bond formed when there is such a good movie playing and you are sitting so close to strangers.
Oh man, I just saw it tonight and cried like a baby. I have to stop seeing movies that make me do that, though it does look good for me. The previous movie I saw was The Fountain and I have a date this week to go see Children of Men. Maybe I just need to invest in stock in Kleenex.
I went in knowing nothing about the film, I didn't even know it was in Spanish! I think I could have used a warning that it would wrench my heart out of my chest, step on it, and then replace it, bleeding and bloody, while trying to give me a hug.
(I liked it so much, I even made a post about it.)
photo by splunge
photo by TheophileEscargot
photo by Kronos_to_Earth
photo by ethylene
