Viewed: 02.08.07
Theater/DVD/Cable: Theater
Overall Review: 4.5 out of 5
Plot:
A very pregnant woman takes her imaginative daughter to the mountains of Spain, circa 1944, to meet her new stepfather, a fascist military captain. As the self righteous captain and his men "hold down the fort" and fight the last of the post civil war rebels, the despondent little girl immerses herself into her own phantasmic imagination.
My Thoughts:
Pan's Labryinth is, in my mind, a masterpiece by director, Guillermo Del Toro. This movie was so intensely beautiful, yet so tragic. It grips at your heart and somehow makes you happy and sad at the same time.
It is not often a movie can be so dark and hopeless, yet magical and creepy. It is absolutely worth the price of admission to see it on the big screen. I will offer a few warnings however. First, the movie is subtitled, so prepare to do a fair amount of reading. If you aren't down with that type of movie, then move along.
Second, this movie is not some Harry Potter or The NeverEnding Story kidfest. While there are moments with fairys and such, at its core this movie is dark and, at times, disturbing. Finally, I think this movie is just different from your typical American movie. At times you can just tell it is a foreign film. I do not write this with negative intent. I think it is great that this movie is breaking into our market and I really applaud the producer for getting it done. It's easy with Del Toro's movies.
As a side note, I got my feet wet with the Del Toro movie, The Devil's Backbone, which I also loved (here is the youtube video for that movie). That movie was creepy and I really dug it as well.
3 comments:
I'm definitely with you on this one .. I was just blown away with the complexity of the worlds created by del Toro, both the real and fantasy one .. It was by far the best movie I've seen in the past year
I am dying to go see this one, but my wife is all into Romantic Comedy mode and the only movies I get to see are "Music & Lyrics" and "Because I Said So" (skip both). Love the new digs.
no new movies in the past month? no review of 300? how am I going to vicariously live through cinejax if you don't update it?
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