Pan's Labyrinth

10m1.jpgThe first time I started to really sit up and take notice of Pan's Labyrinth was after the film received a 22 minute applause after a screening at the Cannes Film Festival. Sure it was on my radar before then, I mean it's Guillermo del Toro for god's sake. The guy who brought us The Devil's Backbone and the stunningly directed Hellboy. Everything after it's showing at Cannes was insane. People were calling it the best film of 2006 months before the end of the year, some even going so far as saying it was the best film they had seen in a long time. By September I was exicted for seeing this thing but as I finally sat waiting for the movie to start I began wondering... could the film possibly live up to it's hype? Well I can tell you Pan's Labryinth isn't the best film of 2006, but it's pretty damn well good. Infact it's great. I'm quite happy to call it the best fantasy movie of the year and definitely Del Toro's best film to date (which in itself is a huge compliment). I was worried at first because it took me a long while to get into it. I would say the first 30 minutes were really painstaking to get through, i'm not sure if it was because I was just getting use to the world the characters were inhabiting or what but it seemed to be going really slow and confused me quite a bit. Once the plot clicked for me though, I started to devour every frame and their is some scenes in this that I will remember for a long time. The plot of the film see's a young 12 year old girl called Ofelia (Ivana Baquero) living in pan.jpgnorthern post-civil war Spain in 1944. Her evil step father Captain Vidal (Sergi Lopez) clearly dislikes her and doesn't treat her kindly at all. When Ofelia finds a secret labyrinth, a guardian faun tells her she is the princess of a magical land and if she ever wishes to return to it she must complete three dangerous tasks. Is this fantasy world a way for Ofelia to cope with the horrors of war and her miserable life with her step father or is it indeed reality? I'm not going to say because you will have to watch the movie for yourself but Del Toro really does a great job of keep this mystery alive throughout the film. A scene involving the evil Pale Man creature is one of the most awesome and horrifying scenes of cinema I have seen in ages. It's unrelenting, amazingly intense (with a terrific creppy score that grates on your ears so much) and one that is surely going to be the thing you remember most about the film. It's an awesome character, with a great design that shits on most of the "scary" creatures you find in most movies. Don't be fooled into thinking Pan's Laybrinth is a fantasy movie for kids. Infact for the most part the narrative isn't a fantasy at all as it's split into two parts. It's both a fun and mysterious fantasy adventure intermingled with a war movie about Spanish facism. Also, at times it gets very violent and Del Toro doesn't shy away from showing us everything on screen, including horrific character deaths ("good guys" aren't safe here) he doesn't leave anything to the imagine. I'm not going to apologize for my biasness towards villain characters in films, but I have to say Sergi Lopez's performance was just captivating. I was afraid of this guy who has enormous prescence and a heart colder than ice. I would certainly think twice about crossing him, he has no mercy and no remorse in killing you if you go aganist his wishes. panlabyrinth1.jpgCredit too must surely go to Doug Jones who was the guy in the suit for the fascinating creatures in the film (including the incredibly evil pale man). I'm looking forward to seeing his future work as Abe Sapian and The Silver Surfer. As always with Del Toro, the movie is stunning to watch and is masterfully directed. He does a great job of creating both a fantasy world and a real world, making them both interesting and not neglecting one for the other. At the end my girlfriend told me that she preferred the real world "civil war" aspect of the film, whilst I enjoyed the girl's fantasy a little more. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the real world stuff to, because that was awesome in itself, but I'm just trying to say that one isn't neglected over the other like they so often are in this type of fantasy flick. Coming out of the film then, I feel as if I've seen not only the best fantasy movie for ages but also probably the best horror film. Again, that scene involving the Pale Man craps on every single horror movie I have seen since the Japenese version of The Ring. It is so good and worthy of the ticket price alone.

rating: 4

Even with a slow and confusing opening (although I'm looking forward to seeing that again now I don't have to worry about plot, etc) Pan's Labyrinth manages to excite and amaze this movie geek. Has to be a shoe-in for the Best Foreign film at the Oscars.
In this post: 
Reviews
 
Posted On: 
Editor-in-chief
Editor-in-chief

Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.