El Laberinto del Fauno (Mexico/Spain/USA) (Picturehouse/Warner Bros) (2006) ****1/2Year: 2006iMDB
Director: Guillermo del Toro Cast: Ivana Baquero, Ariadna Gil, Sergi Lopez, Maribel Verdu
I have to start off with a rant: Why on earth did the American distributors choose to call this movie Pan's Labyrinth? Most people I've talked to before seeing the movie thought it was a reference to Peter Pan. In fact, the title of the movie is The Faun's Labyrinth. Of course not many may know what a Faun is. But Pan is a famous faun. No, not Peter Pan. The other Pan, much older one, from the Greek mythology. So... let's make things easier for everyone by using a misleading title. But enough about this. As a marketing move it actually seems to have worked.
Pan's Labyrinth is one of the best movies of the year, in fact one of the best mixtures of historical drama and true fantasy in years, a powerful drama showing the second World War through the eyes of an innocent young girl, which finds refuge from the daily violence and horror in a fantasy world that is just as violent and disturbing, yet still retaining a certain charm that is lost to the real world.
Reminiscent on some level of Benini's La Vita e Bella (Life is Beautiful), El Laberinto del Fauno is also del Toro's continuation of his earlier The Devil's Backbone, another movie of magical realism inspiration, a ghost story backdropped against the Spanish civil war. The allegory comes full circle in the end as the real world and fantasy merge allowing Ofelia to step from one into the other.
Great movie, strongly recommended.
Posted by TheCasualCritic on January 30, 2007 12:41 AM | TrackBack