Pan's Labyrinth
"Pan's Labyrinth" is the story of a young girl who travels with her pregnant mother to live with her mother's new husband in a rural area up North in Spain, 1944, after Franco's victory. The girl lives in an imaginary world of her own creation and faces the real world with much chagrin. Post-war Fascist repression is at its height in rural Spain and the girl must come to terms with that through a fable of her own.
I was talked into going along to see this by Louise, who showed me a few stills from the film as "bait"... and was very pleased I did (though it was not really what I was expecting). Without giving too much away, it is much grittier than the taglines suggest, with the story of Ofelia and her "imaginary" world weaved in with the story of the brutal reality of life in rural Spain in 1944. There is one particularly brutal scene that made me cringe a little, and made me wonder how the film had avoided an 18 certificate (though it has apparently been edited from the original - the US release runs 7 minutes less than the Spanish original). The film had a 22-minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival, and it's easy to see why.
Recommended, but definitely not for the squeamish - don't be fooled into thinking this is a modern-day "Willow" !
I was talked into going along to see this by Louise, who showed me a few stills from the film as "bait"... and was very pleased I did (though it was not really what I was expecting). Without giving too much away, it is much grittier than the taglines suggest, with the story of Ofelia and her "imaginary" world weaved in with the story of the brutal reality of life in rural Spain in 1944. There is one particularly brutal scene that made me cringe a little, and made me wonder how the film had avoided an 18 certificate (though it has apparently been edited from the original - the US release runs 7 minutes less than the Spanish original). The film had a 22-minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival, and it's easy to see why.
Recommended, but definitely not for the squeamish - don't be fooled into thinking this is a modern-day "Willow" !
1 comment:
A standing ovation?! Wow. Thanks for the review. :)
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