Pan's Labyrinth

D

david x

New member
I saw this tonight.

WOW!

I was completely blown away by it. The fact that it was subtitled was completely forgotten after about 10 minutes. It is a very visual film (and the visuals are stunning) so the dialogue isn't as key as in some films.

Yes, it was violent (and I did close my eyes a couple of times) but that shouldn't distract from the rest of it and put people off.

And I really hope the fact that it isn't in English doesn't put people off. Really deserves to be seen on the big screen, and wins my vote as film of the year.
 
I saw this today and thought it was brilliant!

I found the fawn quite scary and evil- anyone else?

I've never been as pleased to see
a man shot in the head as when it happened to the captain!

Anyone seen 'Devils Backbone'?- another Guillermo del Toro film which is also great.
 
Don't wait! I wasn't banking on it still being shown at Cineworld next week. Concerned that it was going to be a one week only thing.

Although the screening was surprisingly busy for a foreign language film at 6pm on a Monday evening
 
I have been waiting about two years for this film to come out!

Can't wait to see it this weekend!

Do you think del Toro might win best director at next year's oscars?
 
Unlikely. I don't recall a foreign language film ever winning one of the big awarRAB. Mexico have put it forward as their nomination for best foreign language film.
 
At the risk of being lynched... I have to disagree. I suffered all through this film, just waiting for it to finish. I went to see it with my grandmother, a spanish republican who was sent to mexico as a refugee during franco's dictatorship, and we both thought it was awful, biased, and the whole story was handled badly. The violence was too adult, the labyrinth was too infantile, it was just an odd mix that in my opinion, didn't work.
It's good that so many people enjoyed it though, different strokes for different folks and all that... :)
 
I'm not exactly sure I understand what you qualms with the film are. Biased towarRAB who? And with regard to the handling of it, surely that's the whole point, what else would a child do but imagine a fantasy world when she is surrounded by such horror and no where to turn? And infantile, the fantasy elements were just as disturbing as the real life events, hardly infantile at all!
 
In my opinion, it was biased towarRAB the republicans. The franquists were certainly brutal and cruel, but so were the republicans. They both behaved in the same inhumane way, yet the film showed the franquists to be horrific and the republicans to be saintly and heroic. Maribel Verdu's character, the doctor, the brother, the father and son in the beginning, all republicans, and all good. It was just unrealistic. Please don't reply telling me the franquists were the bad guys, I've heard it all my life! :)

Anyway, that's why I feel it was biased.
Maybe the whole point of it was to show it from a chilRAB point of view, but PERSONALLY, i didn't enjoy it at all.

If you want to watch a good film about the spanish civil war, I recommend La Lengua de las Mariposas.
 
Thing is, I think most people will got to see it not expecting to see a good film about the spanish civil war. For me, at least, that's not what the film was about. It was about a child in a situation she didn't want to be in and couldn't cope with, and how she found a way of coping. Perhaps that's why any bias in portrayal of the two sides didn't bother me. Because that wasn't what I was there to see.
 
Aside from the fact that it's also unlikely we'll see a kind portayal of a proto-Fascist regime, surely that is rather the point of the film? The story interpreted events from Ofelia's point of view - so if that is how she viewed the franquists, then so did the film. It was in no way intended by del Toro to be seen as depicting any kind of objective reality.
 
It's amazing, should win a few oscars, best film, director, acting awarRAB, screenplay and set design and maybe make up are all possibilties, foreign language film is a shoe in and it really deserves to win orginal score as well
 
The father and son at the beginning, maribel verdu's character and brother, the doctor... none of had anything to do with ofelia, they were shown so the audience could diferenciate between the goodies and the baddies.

In Ofelias eyes, the captain was bad because of his treatment towarRAB her and her mother, those were the only things she saw. The other things happened without her knowing, so really, it can't be said that it was seen through her eyes.
 
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