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Innocence vs. Evil
by b (movies profile)
Jun 6, 2007
28
of
38 people found this review helpful
"and now i know the choice i made to eat of the tree there in the shade
the apple, the bite, the taste, the sting. i now know what life will
bring - death what more is left? desire has dulled all color and sound
the hand that fed me has struck me down..."
when i walked through the double door and followed the red carpet to
the chair i would make myself at home in for the next two hours, i
prepared my imagination to take a fantastic journey - however dark i
expected it to be - through a surreal fantastical world. the "beautiful
and magical" world that the trailer and poster led me to believe i was
sojourning to. a story about a little girl who, upon meeting a fawn in
a labyrinth, must accomplish three dangerous tasks in order to assume
her crown as a princess had me concocting a lord of the rings/labyrinth
(david bowie) inspired hybrid in my head. but as i sat there waiting
for the lights to dim, i put my expectations to sleep. (i've been
betrayed by those too many times). the child in me had his bags packed
and ready to go to wherever Guillermo wanted to take me. little did i
know that the destination was hell. and i don't mean to suggest that my
experience was betrayed by the advertising or that it was torture to
endure. not by any means. it was after all, rated R. but little did i
know that the R rating was a confident R. it was just way more real
than i assumed. it was brutal. twenty minutes into pan's labyrinth, my
inner child had to summon my inner adult to hold his hand to assure him
that no matter what happened, he was safe and that he was there to
cover his eyes whenever his innocence had to be guarded.
BE WARNED - pan's labyrinth is a heavy movie that in my opinion is
almost as brutal as anything Mel Gibson has done. be it apocalypto, the
passion or braveheart. after all, the backdrop of the film is the
Spanish civil war. and there within lies the brutality. and though
somethings i felt were unrelentingly exploitative and unnecessary, i
believe as a whole - in context of what Guillermo was trying to
accomplish - they made sense. (i personally had to look away in a few
scenes.) this is a film about real evil and its backbreaking nemesis -
the more potent force of redeeming sacrificial love. (and what better
way to personify evil than through the atrocities committed by evil men
in and through war and that of love than through the purity of a
child's heart?) it goes without saying that the mood of the film is
oppressively dark and to Guillermo's credit, mostly because it's coming
from a tangibly evil place, the violence is often all too real but very
hard to stomach. but like a ship in the middle of a storm at sea, it is
the child pan's innocence, awareness of the transcendent and love for
her mother and unborn brother that carry you through the film. her open
heart and willingness to adventure is the story's saving grace.
not willing to give much more away, i will simply warn you that though
pan's labyrinth is a difficult ride, it is a redeeming tragically
beautiful one indeed. the beauty a flower invokes is temporary. but the
beauty love invokes is eternal.
8/10 |
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