Pan's Labyrinth
Today, we went out into the winter snowstorm (the sixth weekend snow in a row) and saw Pan's Labyrinth. It was the first move we'd seen in a theater since Eragon, and we couldn't have picked a better fantasy movie to erase the bitter taste of that crappy fantasy movie from our memories.
Pan's Labyrinth is about a 11-year-old girl named Ofelia who, it seems, is the reincarnation of the princess of the Underground Realm, and the creatures (fairies, a faun, etc.) of the Underground Realm have come to reunite her with her family -- after she passes some tests to prove she is really the princess. That sounds like a typical fantasy movie, huh? But here's what's also going on -- it's 1944 in Franco's Spain, and Ofelia's new step-father is a brutal fascist army captain fighting rebels in the mountains, and Ofelia's mother is in the last days of a difficult pregnancy, about to deliver the captain a son. So the "real life" parts of the movie have just as much drama as the fantasy parts (and far more brutality)!
So, did I like it? Yes, I did. The combination of fantasy with finely detailed historical setting is striking, and you really feel for Ofelia having such a terrible time in the real world, and then having a secret "fantasy" life which is also hard and frustrating -- but does offer a hope of escape.
Pan's Labyrinth is about a 11-year-old girl named Ofelia who, it seems, is the reincarnation of the princess of the Underground Realm, and the creatures (fairies, a faun, etc.) of the Underground Realm have come to reunite her with her family -- after she passes some tests to prove she is really the princess. That sounds like a typical fantasy movie, huh? But here's what's also going on -- it's 1944 in Franco's Spain, and Ofelia's new step-father is a brutal fascist army captain fighting rebels in the mountains, and Ofelia's mother is in the last days of a difficult pregnancy, about to deliver the captain a son. So the "real life" parts of the movie have just as much drama as the fantasy parts (and far more brutality)!
So, did I like it? Yes, I did. The combination of fantasy with finely detailed historical setting is striking, and you really feel for Ofelia having such a terrible time in the real world, and then having a secret "fantasy" life which is also hard and frustrating -- but does offer a hope of escape.
