Official Site http://www.panslabyrinth.com
Movie Stills by AllMoviePhoto.com
Filmmaker Guillermo
An ambitious film, PAN’S LABYRINTH combines the historic and moral themes of his acclaimed Spanish Civil War ghost story THE DEVIL’S BACKBONE with the brutally splendid visual creativity and gripping dynamics of such previous films as HELLBOY and BLADE II.
The cinematography is flawless and is never over done for the sake of proving: “look what I can do.”
Successfully harnessing the formal characteristics of classic folklore to a 20th Century landscape, del Toro delivers a timeless tale of good and evil, bravery and sacrifice, love and loss. One cannot but discern, if familiar with the existential writings of the French and
PAN’S LABYRINTH unfolds through the eyes of Ofelia, a dreamy little girl who is rudely uprooted to a rural military outpost commanded by her new stepfather. Quite powerless, all things beyond her control, as often the skelton of existential writing, and lonely in a place of unfathomable cruelty, Ofelia lives out her own dark fable as she confronts monsters both other worldly and human.
As Ofelia, the young Spanish actress Ivana Baquero holds the screen with a remarkable combination of innocence and maturity, vulnerability and strength.
Unknown to me before this film; she is an actress I should enjoy seeing again.
She is joined by a that should be proud of their effort, a cast that includes international stars Sergí Lopez (DIRTY PRETTY THINGS), Maribel Verdú (Y TU MAMÁ TAMBIÉN) and Ariadna Gil (BELLE ÉPOQUE), as well as frequent del Toro collaborator Doug Jones (HELLBOY).
A lone automobile travels a narrow road in the Spanish countryside in 1944. In the back seat, a little girl named Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) and her mother Carmen (Ariadna Gil) are on their way to their new home. A bright and dreamy little girl, Ofelia keeps her precious books of fairy tales close at hand, despite Carmen’s gentle admonition that it may be time for her to put away these childhood favorites.
It is unlikely that such pastimes will meet the approval of Ofelia’s new stepfather, Captain Vidal (Sergí Lopez). And Carmen, who is pregnant with the captain’s child, is anxious for her daughter to get along with the man to whom she has entrusted their future.
But for Ofelia, fables of good and evil, magic and danger are more than simple entertainment. They are her window onto the world, awakening her to life’s everyday possibilities and mysteries. When a dragonfly captures Ofelia’s attention during a roadside stop, it is not a gangly insect that she follows into the woods but a glistening emerald ambassador, welcoming her to its domain.
There is little sense of welcome, however, when Ofelia and her mother finally arrive at their destination, a Spartan abandoned mill in rural Spain that Vidal has converted into a military headquarters. Though Captain Vidal is there to greet them, his annoyance at their late arrival gives early evidence of the demanding miserable human being we watch develop. Indeed, there is nothing in the officer’s cold, exacting demeanor to suggest that he wishes to be a parent to Ofelia, whose own father died several years ago. What Vidal wants is THE SON that Carmen is carrying, not a family.
On the grounds of the mill, armed soldiers are everywhere. Charged with rooting out resistance fighters in the nearby mountains, Vidal and his troops zealously pursue any and all signs of their opponents. Thus far, the rebels have managed elude capture, though fascists have solidified their power in the region. Those local people who clean and cook for the soldiers do their work quietly, speaking only when they are spoken to. Carmen, her condition already precarious, grows even sicker and is soon confined to her bed.
In this tense uncertain and fearful environment, Ofelia finds a sympathetic presence in the housekeeper Mercedes (Maribel Verdú), who shows her a rambling, neglected old garden near the mill. With its winding paths, it is a lovely place to wander, though one can easily become lost there after nightfall.
That garden labyrinth will become Ofelia’s haven, a dark refuge from loneliness and sorrow. It is a place of fantastical creatures and powerful talismans, presided over by a teasing, inscrutable Faun (Doug Jones). Here, Ofelia will come to terms with the world as she now knows it – and with the monsters that live not only in her imagination, but in her daily life.
If there is but one sentence that can be written to define the riveting nature of this compelling film, it is that, thought it is subtitled, two to three minutes into the film you are no longer aware of that fact. This film works from the moment it begins to the great, near final scene when.
Dying, Vidal expresses his desire to have his son know of his fathers great military valor; he is sent to his existential hell with Mercedes words: “He shall never know your name!”
I know not if more awards await this film, but that matters not, for I would venture that this film has already entered into the hallowed film ground of those that will be taught in film classes as a masterpiece of the genre.
A FEW LAST ITEMS:
Pans Labyrinth Sketch Book
Ivana Fan Site
Movie Critic.com (Pan's Labyrinth)
A Bit of Side Line Chatter: (PAN: Philosophical content)
Existentialist Intro
Sartre VS. Camus
SFdiplomat.net_The failure of Pan's Labyrinth for me was that it was completely lacking in moral ... then I really get a kick out of Sartre's Existentialism is a Humanism. ...
I seriously doubt he'd interpret it as athiestic existentialism, either. ... My reading of Pan's Labyrinth is that it has elements of Catholicism in it, ... www.rottentomatoes.com/vine/showthread.php?t=533179&page=1 - 195k - Jan 20, 2007 -
Written, produced and directed by Guillermo del Toro.
Produced by Bertha Navarro, Alfonso Cuarón, Frida Torresblanco, and Álvaro Augustin.
Director of photography Guillermo Navarro, ASC.
Edited by Bernat Vilaplana.
Production designer Eugenio Caballero
.
Set construction by Construcciones Escenicas Moya S.I. Music by Javier Navarrete.
Sound designer Martín Hernandez, sound by Miguel Polo.
Special effects make-up and animatronics by DDT FX, digital effects by CafeFX, and physical effects by Reyes Abades.
Executive producers Belen Atienza and Elena Manrique, co-executive producer Edmundo Gil, associate Producer CafeFX.
Produced in association with Sententia Entertainment.
Casting by Sara Bilbatua.
Wardrobe design by Lala Huete. Starring
Sergí Lopez,
Maribel Verdú,
Ivana Baquero,
Alex Angulo,
Doug Jones,
Eusebio Lazaro,
and Paco Vidal.
With the special collaboration of Federico Luppi and, in the role of Carmen, Ariadna Gil.
This review prepared by Ed. Dickau
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