Pan's Labyrinth

 

I recently watched Pan's Labyrinth, a film by Guillermo del Toro. It was a fairy tale set in Francoist Spain about a little girl and her mother who were sent to live with the Falangist Captain Vidal. The little girl, Ofelia, meets a faun, who tells her to complete three tasks. 

The fantastical world that Ofelia experiences can be compared to the brutal world that she lives in. In the fantasy world, there is a child-eating creature that chases Ofelia. In the real world, the character Vidal is just as despicable and abhorrent as the child-eating creature in the fantasy world. The dichotomy between the two worlds, and how what happens in the fantasy world reflects what happens in reality, is a central subject throughout the film.


The visuals in the movie look great, and all of the creatures in the movie look very interesting. Even though the film was made almost fifteen years ago, the special effects still hold up today, and some of the locations in the fantasy world look absolutely beautiful. I especially loved how well the labyrinth seemed to be a part of both the fantastical world and the real world.

I loved how the film mixed fantasy and reality, and how many of the fantastical elements were similar to parts of the story that happened in the real world. The brutality of the real world creeps into the fantasy world as well, but so does the kindness; both the faun and the rebel Mercedes attempted to help Ofelia. I also thought that the movie was incredibly well written, and I found the parts of the story dealing with Captain Vidal and the Maquis to be just as engaging as Ofelia's story.



I would not change anything in the film, as I loved every part of it. I heard that at one point, del Toro was thinking of making a sequel, which I would definitely be interested in seeing. Overall, I really loved this film, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes fairy tales, fantasy, and history.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My first blog post!

 Hello! My name is Andros Linnell, and I've loved films for as long as I remember. I like films because they let me see the world from a different perspective for a while, even if only for 90 minutes. I can't really think of my favorite movies, but my favorite directors would definitely be Sergei Parajanov, Victor  Sjöström, and Akira Kurosawa. I am personally really looking forward to learning more about film this year, as someone who is a huge fan of films.
Read more

Narrative Film Blogpost

Image
  Our idea for the narrative film was to shoot various clips of Dylan practicing basketball, eventually winning a game. We decided to shoot handheld to have a constantly moving camera to emphasize the constant movement of basketball. It reflects the theme of making one's own future by having Dylan improve in basketball. We started our work on the film by deciding that we wanted to have a film about basketball. After working out a shortlist, we went out to film over the next couple of periods. The filming process went well, but due to the fact that we used a phone camera, some of the shots came out in portrait instead of landscape, which had to be corrected in Premiere.   
Read more

Good Will Hunting

Image
         Recently, we watched the 1997 film Good Will Hunting , written by now-famous actors Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. The film was very interesting in how it utilized mise en scene to tell its story. Good Will Hunting uses Mise En Scene to contrast Will’s world and the academic world. In scenes that revolve around Will’s world, there is always movement in the background, while in scenes that take place in the academic world, there is little to no movement in the background. Note, for example, this scene where Will (Matt Damon) is talking to his friend Chuckie (Ben Affleck). There is always something going on in the background, even when not much is happening.   And note how in this scene, there is nothing happening in the background. This helps contrast the tumultuous nature of Will's personal life and the sterile nature of his academic life. This contrast can be further shown in how the resplendent colors in the bar scene contrast with the mut...
Read more