Pan's Labyrinth

Movies have always been fascinating to me - probably because I have watched so many of them either on TBS of FX reruns. Rarely, though, do I actually sit down and enjoy a movie that hooks me from the beginning and makes me empathize for the characters almost immediately. Watching Pan's Labyrinth tonight seemingly transported me back to 1944 Fascist Spain from the onset. Perhaps it was the English subtitles that made the movie more real. But the fact of the matter was that I walked into the movie not knowing what to expect - only to be pleasantly surprised by how well the movie was put together and executed.

For the most part, I was disturbed by the realistic portrayal of a posts World War II fascist Spain in the movie. The realism embodied by the stories and the characters leave little to the imagination - considering every bit of pain, every bit of torture, and every bit of Ophelia (main character)'s solitude, managed to escape the screen and befall the audience. On the other hand, imagination was all that this girl had to live for. Stuck in a military post with a stereotypically sadistic and murderous captain, along with his group of horse riding cavalry, she really needed an escape from the life that fate had chosen for her. As an outsider to this little world dominated by military men, she had turned to her imaginations as a means to preserve her sanity, and in doing so, made the movie all the more entertaining.

The most intriguing part of the movie was the fact that it was left to the audience to decide whether or not there really was a magical underworld - one that Ophelia is the supposed princess. The story goes that a princess had once escaped from her magical underworld that had no pain and no suffering. Upon entering the surface, she was sickened by the sun, and therefore, perished as all mortals do. Her spirit was reincarnated into a different form, and the audience was to assume that this new form was within Ophelia. In order for Ophelia to return to her magical world, she needed to perform three tasks – as outlined by the magical character, The Fauno (ugly SOB…kind of made you want to imagine the scarf wearing centaur from Narnia). Throughout the movie, the physical items that were part of her three tasks were visible to those that were in the dark about her secret world. At the same time, many scenes also eluded to the fact that she was indeed hallucinating and thereby creating this world to dull her own pain – the scene where the chalk line of her magical door was still visible – and the climatic scene where she was talking to herself were among the few examples.

Nevertheless, the realism in the movie was the true selling point. The movie was real in a sense that the characters all managed to develop a distinct personality; for the good guys, we were able to sympathize for the terrible situation in which they were in; and for the bad guys (namely the captain), we empathized for his life dominated by hubris, pride, and a history of militarism in his family. Everyone had their own agenda - it was rather the agenda that you most identified with that would cause you to get sucked into the movie. Everyone would have their own character to identify with, and mine uncharacteristically fell with the captain. He did what was necessary to protect those things that were of importance to him: his post, pride, and most importantly, his legacy in this world. Everyone has their own agenda and a priority list in life. Why should he be cast aside because he was portrayed to be the antagonist in the movie?

It is hard for me to fathom a more graphically violent movie that I thoroughly enjoyed - particularly a movie whose focus was certainly not on the violence, but about the strength of imagination by one little girl. Nevertheless, the storyline, the realism, and the eclectic mix of good and even better characters made this movie a worthwhile experience.