Pan's Labyrinth: What is Real? (SPOILERS)

[axordil]

It's very good. It's also hard to watch in more than a few spots. del Toro is a master at giving you the shock of personal-scale graphic violence without actually showing you as much as you think you see...and not all the violence that made me flinch was physical.

The question I must ask is, and it's spoilerish, so down the page it goes:

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Within the context of the movie, are we to believe that all the fantastic elements are real, or none, or some? The cues are conflicting...the faun is not visible to the captain, but if the walls do not part for Ofelia, how does she evade him in the labyrinth? This is a question which is vital to how one parses the ending: is it pathetic or is it apotheosis?

[Alatar]

I think you should start a new thread Ax, or mark this one as a Spoiler-thread since we can't really discuss that without getting spoilery.

[axordil]

Perhaps I can impose on the local constabulary to split at that post.

[Primula Baggins]

Naow then, naow then, wot's all this then?

<goes off to split thread>

Edit: Done. Retitle as you wish, of course, Ax.

[Alatar]

I think its meant to be ambiguous Ax. At least thats the way I saw it. There are other places which beg the same question. She was locked in her room, under guard, yet managed to make it to the Captains quarters. Mercedes, when she comes to the room sees a doorway sketched in chalk.

I like to think of it as fantasy bleeding into reality, but to be honest, I prefer not to look too closely in case I break the spell

[axordil]

The chalk doorway is definitely another cue implying the veracity of Ofelia's vision. Another would be the mandrake root/milk/blood thing, which isn't in any children's fairy tale book I can think of offhand...but is definitely folk tradition, not something a city kid would be likely to know that well.

I guess it's important to me that the ending is, within the context of the movie, real and not a bogus near-death experience. The ambiguity of the rest of the movie wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for that, because it changes the nature of the experience pretty drastically if the poor girl dies deluded as opposed to redeemed.

I could accept the notion that we are not meant to believe in it without a shred of doubt, though. Grudgingly.

[TheWagner]

Within the context of the movie, are we to believe that all the fantastic elements are real, or none, or some? The cues are conflicting...the faun is not visible to the captain, but if the walls do not part for Ofelia, how does she evade him in the labyrinth? This is a question which is vital to how one parses the ending: is it pathetic or is it apotheosis?

I think that it really is a story about how people are not where they choose to be, no matter how hard they try to believe it, and Vidal's assertion to the contrary. (But, then, Vidal is a fascist, and thus prone to having things completely backwards!)

In the end, Ofelia tries desperately to be in another world: but, in the end, she is just another casualty of a real world in which bellicose efforts to mold things to different wills just runs over the hopes of individuals, fairy tales notwithstanding.

[axordil]

Then again, how well did Vidal live by his own standard? He tries to create his own "fairy tale," does he not, in which he, like his father, leaves a twisted notion of heroism to a son, screwing his life up thereby? And thankfully he is cut short in the attempt. I've never been more glad to see someone shot in the face in a movie...

[yovargas]

Just saw. Will comment later but first -

I got there a few minutes late. I got there in the scene where she first sees that bug thing and chases it into the labyrinth. Can someone please give me a run down of the scenes before that? I felt like I was missing some important story foundations the whole time (particularly not knowing who was fighting who and why).

[yovargas]

On the Is It Real? question, I thought the movie was intentionally leaving it ambiguos and letting the viewer decide what they thought. But upon further thought, there's tons of reasons to think it was real and only one that I can remember to think it was fake - that the stepdad couldn't see the fawn. I think the ambiguity makes it more interesting but in the end there's too much pointing to it being real.

[axordil]

Yovargas--

The first scene is a reversal of the one at the end, with Ofelia lying near death, blood running back into her nose and mouth, while the narrator talking about how the daugher of the King of the Underworld escaped to the lands of the sun once long ago, and sickened and died there. The narrator then explained that the KOTU then searched for ages for another girl who carried her spirit.

The motorcade with Ofelia and her mom then drives through the woods, but has to stop when her mother is ill. Ofelia, who had been reading a book of fairy stories, sees a carved stone eye lying in the road, and sees an ancient carved stone figure where it seens to fit. Placing it the gap causes the insect/fairy to emerge from the hollow mouth of the figure, and it follows the motorcade to the mill.

[vison]

A friend of mine wrote the following review. I haven't seen the movie and am not going to, at least in part because of what "V" wrote. She is, I think, an amazing writer. It was posted at another LOTR-related website. She gave me permission to post it here:

(spoilers, of course!!!!)

Last week I went to see a film called Pan's Labyrinth. It has won a barrowful of awards, some at Cannes Film Festival and it is nominated for best foreign language film in the Oscars. It looked very interesting, and I was finally pushed in the back to see when I read it was 'as good as the Lord of The Rings'

In its dreams it is. (I am going to reveal a lot about the film here so if you plan to see it, beware spoilers!)

The film has a 12PG rating, but it is wildly unsuitable for children. The publicity (and the cutesy posters) suggests a fairy tale (or, a 'fairy tale for adults') but it is a nightmarish one if it is one at all. The story is split between the real life of a little girl whose mother has remarried, to a sadistic army captain in the service of General Franco after the Spanish Civil War, and a strange, haunting fantasy world that the child retreats into when things get just too horrible in the real world (like her mother having a miscarriage, or her stepfather mutilating and murdering innocent people)

This dichotomy, this split universe, where a savage and unfriendly real world is contrasted with a wonderful and magic otherword (which is not without horrors and dangers of its own) is, I am told, magic realism. There is not necessarily any connection between the two worlds, except that the subject, in this case the little girl, can travel between them.

Perhaps the magic world is just the result of a desperate desire to escape real life (escapism with a difference) or perhaps, and this gives this dark genre its significance, the magic, imagined world is the real one. After all, what we create in our minds cannot decay or be destroyed, not can it betray us.

What Tolkien did was use a fantasy world to tell certain truths. The magic realism of Pan's Labyrinth uses a brutal tale of real life to tell certain truths too, but also opens a door into a world where fairy tales are played out to a little girl who thereby learns another set of truths.

The problem is on the way we are treated to ghastly scenes of torture and bestial cruelty. In one scene the captain stepfather of the little girl smashes a broken bottle repeatedly into a man's face. In another, he has his own face cut open. He then calmly proceeds to stitch it back together. The camera does not move away, so the audience squirms through the whole thing. At the showing I went to, there were quite a few children, who either had to be taken out or cried all through the film.

'As good as The Lord of The Rings'? Someone, I fear, has not actually understood The Lord of The Rings. Sure, Tolkien uses fantasy. But it is not to distract us from the real world, or to offer a palliative when the real world is utterly awful and unbearable. Tolkien uses fantasy to tell stories in their pure form; pure story. To set it in New York, or in Ballyhaunis would actually be to distract us and tell a story about New York or Ballyhaunis. Set in Middle Earth, which has only the qualities we, helped by Tolkien, invest in it, we can see the themes head on, almost in a vacuum.

In Pan's Labyrinth the real life story tells us that the world is cruel, that the love between man and woman is only exploitation and abuse, that children are to be valued as nothing, that the way to win is to kill and that mercy is weakness. The magic world that underlies the real one, into which the little girl ventures, offers her trials and rewards that show her that courage, obedience and self-control will win a great prize; immortality, the escape from the world.

This is Arwen in reverse; the little girl seeks more than anything to leave all mortality behind, because she wants to escape the cruel real world. Arwen, for love, sought to remain in the perishible world, and sacrifice her immortal life. But in Tolkien's world, there is love; not just that of Arwen and Aragorn, but that of Sam for his master Frodo, and Merry and Pippin for each other; of Éowyn for her uncle, of Faramir for Éowyn (even if we can't figure out why) When everything else fails, it is love that keeps the heroes going, like with Frodo and Sam as they struggle, half dying, through Mordor.

In Pan's Labyrinth, even when there is love, such as that between the little girl and her mother, it is doomed. The mother dies. Even Pan himself does not care for the little girl; when she makes a mistake he turns violently on her and sends her back distraught to her suffering in the real world. If she can't fulfil the required challenges to 'prove' herself, only ruin awaits her, with no pity in either world. To fail, this film seems to say, is to be proved unworthy of life itself. In the whole story there is not the slightest trace of what imbues all of Tolkien's epic; hope.

Not all the praise this film got is undeserved; the special effects are truly magical. The acting is wonderful and the characters, especially the child, are totally convincing. There are many licks from Tolkien; an Old Man Willow type tree. A Shelob-like toad that is poisoning the forest, and into which the little girl, copying Lúthien stealing the three Silmarils, must place three stones. The backgrounds in Pan's world, at the end, are Elvish in inspiration and feel. Pan reminded me of Ghân-buri-Ghân.

I read The Lord of The Rings when I was very young, and it was seen as a book for children. But as I got older, it never left me; re-reading it did not disappoint me and make me think I had over-valued it, but showed me even more themes and meanings. In my life, I often thought about events and ideas from it, when I needed courage or hope, or found the love and support of friends. The Lord of The Rings rang true in the real world.

Tolkien understood that myths tell us great truths. Pan's Labyrinth tells us that reality and fantasy must be separated, for they cannot mix. One is magical and good where there is only wonder and joy. The other is hideous and painful. To live in one, you must die in the other.

In the course of his quest, Frodo Baggins comes into contact with great evil. So great that he can almost not understand it, and in the end he cannot bear even its memory, and has to leave the world he knows to seek some far, imperishible land where he can live and die in peace. In the end of Pan's Labyrinth, it seems that the little girl does the same.

But Frodo goes to the West as a result of his own decision. As always, however great the danger or however wise the counsel, Frodo makes up his own mind, using his intelligence and his great physical and moral courage. There is no magic, no escapism for Frodo, he is a real character, and his departure is the sad leaving of his home and friends, not the sudden falling into paradise of the young heroine in the film.

'In whom will you put your trust when the Elves are gone?' asks Elrond in the film. When that magical race is gone, who will sustain the earth?

Gandalf replies; 'It is in men we must put our trust' And despite Elrond's scorn, the story of the The Lord of The Rings justifies Gandalf's faith. There is courage and honour in man, enough to bear this great responsibility.

In Pan's Labyrinth, man is shorn not just of honour but of love, pity and decency. In some otherworld, Elf-like monarchs reign from golden thrones, immortal and serene. Between the two worlds there is no connection.

But between Tolkien's Elves and men there is always a link. In some way, the Elves enoble even those who are not of their kind, like Frodo, 'Elf-friend'. The marriages between Beren and Lúthien, and Aragorn and Arwen, symbolise this union of mortal and immortal. Tolkien bridges the two worlds, as Pan's Labyrinth does not.

The only similarity between the Lord of The Rings trilogy and Pan's Labyrinth is..... ..... :mutter: ........ ....... ...... :huh: .......

Yes! I have it!

they are both.....FILMS!

thanks for listening...

V

[axordil]

Vison--
In the US it had a well-deserved hard R rating--I wouldn't think of taking a kid under 14 to it, and only the most mature of them.

As for comparing it to LOTR--the critics who did that are shallow and silly. It's like comparing Lawrence of Arabia to Three Kings because they're both movies about wars in the Middle East.

It is an extremely uncomfortable film to sit through, and I don't think I need to see it again anytime soon. That doesn't mean it's not good, only that its subject matter is harsher than I like to be confronted with on a regular basis. That, and a lot of it is seared in my retinas, for better or worse.

[yovargas]

So....is she saying she didn't like it cuz it wasn't LOTR? If her criteria for judging the quality of a movie is how LOTR-like it is, I fear there will be precious few movies she ever enjoys. And criticizing the movie for its bleakness is like criticizing Holocaust films for not being more fun.

[axordil]

yov--
Yeah, for me it's close to the Schindler's List level of never having to see it again because it was THAT good at what it did. Actually, I may start a topic on that subject...

[vison]

This was the crux of her review, IMHO: "In Pan's Labyrinth, man is shorn not just of honour but of love, pity and decency. In some otherworld, Elf-like monarchs reign from golden thrones, immortal and serene. Between the two worlds there is no connection."

and: "Pan's Labyrinth tells us that reality and fantasy must be separated, for they cannot mix. One is magical and good where there is only wonder and joy. The other is hideous and painful. To live in one, you must die in the other. "


I have read the same sort of comment in other reviews of this movie.

V is a passionate moviegoer, and I'm not. She, herself, was not comparing to LOTR, but arguing rather strongly against comparing it to LOTR in the first place.

Having said that, she didn't like the movie and that doesn't surprise me. She's a great one for Hope.

I'm never sure how I am "meant" to respond to this kind of movie, and I won't likely find out by seeing it. I've never unwrapped the videotape of "Schindler's List" that I bought when it was first released on video. Not only had I read the book when it was first published (a long time ago), I didn't "need" to read it or see it to learn about the Holocaust, I knew more than I wanted to know about it since I was a child. I have read, maybe too much, about it, and to be perfectly honest, I can't bear to read any more.

Yet I know there are millions of younger folks who haven't heard it yet. And I know there are many millions more to whom the Spanish Civil War is completely unknown. Will this movie inform them? I have no way of knowing.

[axordil]

I would actually take issue with her moral analysis, vison. There are loving people, decent people, honorable people in PL. Unfortunately, most of them die. Fortunately, they generally do so without compromising what makes them loving, decent and honorable.

It just so happens that instead of being in orc makeup, the monsters are in Franco's uniforms, and by some measures, the bad guys win. In this respect PL is much more like, say, the Narn i Hin Húrin than LOTR.

[yovargas]

I also find her moral analysis strange. It's almost as if she thought the movie was in favor of the horrific, violent fascists instead of in favor of the heros fighting them. And the heroes win, so it does not portray a hopeless world, though their victory comes at enormous costs.

[vison]

Goodness knows this is a person I don't always agree with! Great scott, the fights we've had!!! Often I disagree vehemently with her, and no kidding.

She "comes at" things from a viewpoint very, very different than mine, and it informs her reactions to things. But she is always provacative and her arguments are always well written. I am a great fan of her writing, and I wish she would write more in the 'real world'.

[Padme]

I think the only thing comparable to the LoTR stuff is the scenery and CGI stuff. Other than that, the stories are completely different. I think del Toro is comparable to Jackson in his directing abilities. I honestly thought the toad in the tree was comparable (CGI wise) to Shelobs lair. But the scenes were completely different stories, no comparision to the each other at all.

And I for one like movies that don't end all happy butterflies all the time. Sure happy endings are fine but every so often its nice to see something that is not the Hollywood norm.