This week in class we go to watch Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth and after coming off the boring Lost in Translation, I'm glad to say that I really liked this one. I thought they meshed the fantasy with the reality of the time really well, and I really liked the historical feel of the film. My favorite (and the saddest part) was when Ofelia was running of with her brother, and the general shoots her. I liked how that scene was shot because the at first I thought the Faun might have done something to save her but then the Ofelia turns and you see the blood. Followed by Mercedes' reaction the scene really had an emotional impact.
I also thought the whole time that the Faun was actually manipulating her to do something evil, because whenever Ofelia would question him he would kind of brush her aside and especially when the Faun wanted her to kill her brother. I also liked that Ofelia didn't sacrifice her brother and that really made me respect her as a character.
After the movie ended we briefly discussed whether or not all the magical stuff was real and how it is kind of left up to interpretation to the the viewer. To me, the film is a lot better if Ofelia was imagining the whole thing. She's a young girl with her head always in a fairy tale, so it's definitely within her character. I think there's also some evidence of this when Ofelia early on talks to the dragonfly/insect thing following her and talks to it and is like this is what a fairy looks like and the bug changes shape to copy the image in her book. I think this was actually in Ofelia imagination and Guillermo is actually showing the audience that all this from the start is Ofelia actually trying the register the the trauma going on around her in her own child like way. We know that her father recently passed away amidst a bloody civil war, and her mother is pregnant with a man that is she is now expected to view as her new father. Any child would need an outlet to be able to make sense of what is going on an the whole princess thing was just to help her cope.
No comments:
Post a Comment