A Matured Lens for Del Toro.

Pan's Labyrinth.

While I'd already had the pleasure of watching this movie once, I figured it was worth a "while the hell not" for this blog post. I was relatively young when it came out (or at least young enough to not fully understand what was going on and why), so I was also interested to see what I'd think of it the second time around. I definitely maintained my initial feelings of "what the hell did I just watch?", but all around I'd have to say I was much more entertained during round two.

First of all, there was much more to be entertained by. Seen through younger eyes, Pan's Labyrinth is a movie about a distant war and the two sides it involves, with a little bit of fantasy thrown in for good measure. I never really understood why the story had to be told from the perspective of a little girl who just so happens to be thrown into the mix due to her unfortunately involved mother; the real story being told was about the war, to me, so what was all of this fairy tale nonsense for? Why couldn't we just be told everything from a rebel's point of view? The maid seemed like an interesting character, being a spy and all. Hell, why not a story focused on Captain Vidal? He's awesome!

From the point of view of a student who's about 60% through his training as a Game Artist, though, it's a different story. Now that I've been taught to find significance in every single choice that an artist makes when producing quality work, I actually found myself a bit overwhelmed by all of the aforementioned choices. I see now that the whole point of the story being told from the perspective of a little girl is to have the viewer feel the events of the film more personally, and to have a sense that we would be incredibly vulnerable in this universe of both fantastic and real dangers. I remember thinking how ridiculous it was to open the movie with a lot of talk about myths and princesses of the underworld, then just go tell a story that's so heavy on problems based in reality. Now, however, I see that this introduction  (and rather unsatisfying ending) serves merely as an excuse to shepherd the viewer into a universe that, as I said before, seems daunting and foreboding. Without the fantastic elements, the tale becomes one that has been told many times before, and would be much more bland that the surreal thrill that Pan's Labyrinth is lauded to be.

--William Avery