Having been educated to appreciate the classic Greek tragedies, I look for modern equivalents, and as you suggest, they are rare.

We seem to require cinematic tricks of car chases, chainsaw massacres, or representations of war in order to feel anything. It's hard to imagine feeling a sympathetic pain today, as the ancients did, upon Oedipus' discovery that he had killed his own father and married his mother. Instead we need clashing light sabres between Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker, and that proves to be just another familiar resolution of a problem plot by violence. It's always "High Noon" in Hollywood.

While Shakespeare usually kept his fairy tales comedic, he also taught us new dimensions of tragedy. It's refreshing to hear about this new film.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I can't agree that the public is sated. Quite the opposite. Zooming spaceships and imitation dismemberment on a flat screen in a pointless story are very thin gruel. And everyone who watches that stuff knows it. The public is starved for first-class entertainment, i.e. good art.

Of course the entertainment industry is much too big and much too busy to do much good art. There's not much space for original creative work. God knows if Shakespeare could make a living in Hollywood or Broadway.

But independent artists, working on their own dime, in a wide variety of disciplines, are everywhere. And if they go out to the public, and if they do good work, they very often find an enthusiastic audience. Not to say it's easy.

And yes, this review is a fine piece of writing.

Stone Riley
www.stoneriley.com

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

The review is a fine piece of writing. I saw them film last Saturday and wholeheartedly endorse its conclusions. Pan's Labyrinth is a wonderful fusion of adult tragedy and childhood fairy tale.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

there is a difference you know...

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

I saw this brilliant film last week at a sneak preview. It doesn't pull any punches. Fairy tales aside, this film makes clear that fascism kills hope, kills the future and kills the past.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Amazing how the fascists won. But the movie shows that they are evil and in this movie everything seemed to scream of evil, even the partisan republicans hunting rabbits at night.

This is not a children's fair tale but it ranks up there with the best of them.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

according to Guillermo, all of the effects were American. It is a Spanish/Mexican/ American production. Del Toro has said he didn't want Hollywood to control the ending. He also says the Spanish Civil War reverberated greatly in Mexico.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

http://tinyurl.com/26ht4m

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Yes, this film was beautifully rendered. It will be lauded until the next visual miracle is released. But when the lights come up, "Pan's Labyrinth" suffers from an age-old afflcition: a weakly rendered hero.

Go ahead and scoff--I've already endured being the only one to hate "The Piano." That piece of neo-jacobine tragedy suffered from the same affliction: the author's stubborn insistence in keeping the dear hero from suffering a tragic fall. Is it some sort of post-modern hubris that keeps contemporary authors from hurting their precious heroes?

Or is it my own myopic prejudice that keeps me from noticing a more subtle transformation that today's characters undergo. If that is the case, please respond with an outline of how Ofelia's character underwent growth, transformation, or any kind of change. Hell, the villian, Vidal, changed more --physically and spirituall--than she did.

There was a major cesaura where Ophelia acted completely contrary to her established characterization, and with little contribution to the plot development. Neither did she grow from that episode, nor did she even seem to learn anything from that mistake. To me, that caused this film to deviate severely from the time-honored tragic tradition.

I tried to console myself by considering that "Pan's Labyrinth" was not a tragedy, or even a fairy tale. I tried to rationalize that it was more firmly rooted in the Magical Realism tradition. Unfortunately, while I am not an expert in the genre, I have read and seen enough Magical Realism to know that characters do not stay static there either. Perhaps it is best just to view del Toro's film as a flawed attempt. Hopefully, instead of leaping ona bandwagon and heaping false praise, perhaps it would serve the auteur more by pointing out how to make a better film next time.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

Am I the only one who didn't see this as a tragedy? Given that the princess originally lost herself in the mortal realm through death, wouldn't it make sense that she would have to return by the same route? My companion seemed to interpret the ending as being "all in her head," in denial of what had happened to her, but it certainly felt right and expected to me.

Scott

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]

In some future analysis, disguised as another dark and tragic block buster movie, the story of the fall of another nation and its addiction to alleged righteousness will begin in a once-upon-a-time fairy tale.
The story will unfold with a young would be hero who longed for the approval of his father, King of Oil. Viewers will sympathize with the young man as he grows up under the long shadow and arm of the future mob-like Carlyle Group and the inextricable influence of his mother’s old time fundamentalist religion.
Banished to the desert, the single most important event of his life thus far, the death and memory of his sister, is wiped away. Grief, closure, a respect for life that survives out side the boundaries of a corporate owned lab, and a healthy explanation is denied him. Under the boiling heat, through the sweat of hard work and repeated failures; the male version of female tears, he learns a darker truth underlying the world of his demigods, his father and mother.
The death of a close loved one, an absentee father and a depressed and religiously fanatic mother teaches him his first and most potent lessons; children, females, loved ones and life, in general, are insignificant compared to the relentless pursuit of wealth and power, except in his unrelenting night mares.
In this epic creation, the world of his childhood nightmares will pursue him and haunt his native land into his adult life. His real and imaginary monsters, rivaling those of Pan’s labyrinth, will plague his night time and awakening existence. The nation of his birth begins to feel the economic hatred of a world becoming flat, until the two worlds of the young hero’s nighttime and daytime nightmares become indistinguishable through another life shattering event early one September morning. A synchronistic sub-plot develops as Generals of The New World Order’s army takes command and the Neo-Con President of Carlyle, attempts to save the King of Oil’s son from his legacy and himself.
The movie, the first in a series of sequels, will end with a back drop of electronically elected Senators and Representatives floating on a raft of impeachable offenses who will be singing hymns, anthems and waving the flag of supporting the troops as television pundits dither about the gender, race, designer gowns and party of their nation’s next presidential appointee, televangelists and economic prognosticators beat the drums of revenge, hatred of outsiders, assassination plots and revel in public hangings, print media owners twist headlines to resemble the lines of poetry sung by its former heroes, and an unsuspecting nation, cradled to sleep by so-called reality shows, video and online games, and a never ending stream of American Idols, drowns in a sea of red blood, CO2 emissions, and ink.
Privacy, freedom of speech, Habeas Corpus, Posse Comitatus, the right to bear arms (given over to a Neo Civilian Reserve Corp) the pursuit of happiness and the right to vote become inconsequential casualties of our would be hero’s internal and external, daytime and nighttime twin terrors.
The first of these epic prospect films has been written. The Delusional Hero with his nation stands alone and cornered. It is a story of unrealized infantile male fantasies, war, lies, a web of international deception, a global struggle for world dominance and tragedy, indeed. It is coming too soon to theatres near us all.

[« Reply to this comment] [Post a new comment »] [Rate this comment: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5]