My Favorite (non-Porn) Movie of 2006

Last year I attended the Toronto Film Festival for the 451st consecutive year. I mostly saw a lot of decent films--close to twenty this time, down from nearly thirty the previous year. Only a couple of movies stuck with me, but they were so good that I didn’t really need more. The first was Deliver Us From Evil, a documentary about a Catholic priest who molested an unfathomable number of children over a period of nearly two decades--with the church's complicity. It is a very disturbing, yet riveting film that will leave any viewer outraged, shocked, angry…in short a real ‘feel good’ time at the flicks. After seeing that film I have to say—and no disrespect to Catholics, but—the entire Vatican theocracy can DIAF.

The other was Guillermo del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth. Maybe I loved this movie so much because I wasn’t expecting much. Don’t get me wrong; I like del Toro, or rather I thought before seeing this film that he was a competent filmmaker. I’ve seen most of his work, beginning with 'Mimic' which I thought would be just another generic serial-killer/monster flick, but turned out pretty good. I netflixed 'The Devil’s Backbone' and thought it was well done, but a bit too heavy on atmosphere and light on story. 'Blade 2' and 'Hellboy' were both mixed-bag experiences. 'Blade 2' was pretty much what you expected it to be. Nothing memorable, but not an embarrassment by any means. 'Hellboy' considering the source material was a minor letdown, similar to how I felt about the first X-Men movie. All the ingredients were there, just not in the proper amounts. Then comes Pan’s and from start to finish I was absolutely enthralled.

The film takes place in Spain around the end of WWII. A little girl tries to escape the horrors of the spasmodically winding down (wish I could phrase that better) war through excursions into a fantasy world she discovers in the ruins behind an army encampment. She also has to tend to her sick pregnant mother and contend with her wicked prick of a stepfather.

Let’s start with the heroine, Ofelia, played by Ivana Baquero.

Too often (I generalize of course) in American films, the child actors don’t act like children. We praise them for their precociousness and how ‘adult’ they act (see: Haley Joel Osment, Dakota Fanning, the Culkin clan). Here, Baquero manages to convey the innocent awe a child would experience delving into such a fantastic world and gets the viewer to abandon his or her own modern effed-up cynicism/skepticism. Credit the actress and the director. Guillermo’s ability to direct children reminds me of early Spielberg. He just gets the most natural and effective performance possible from this young lady. She never over-emotes, yet I feel her sense of wonderment, fear, stubbornness, compassion, etc. Another accomplishment is that I never felt manipulated.

I would argue that all films are manipulative in some way; it’s just that the best ones never feel like they’re manipulating you. In Pan's Labyrinth I became fully invested in Ofelia's plight to escape the horrible realities around her. As the movie reached its climax, I was completely in tears. That takes a lot (or maybe as I get older it doesn't, but I swear only five films including this have ever made me cry and that's: E.T.,Antoine Fisher (when his family invites him to eat and they all introduce themselves...total sucker, I know), Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (when Anty dies) and 4 Little Girls).

Another performance that anchors the film is Maribel Verdu’s.



I hadn’t seen her in anything since Y Tu Mama Tambien, where she played the dying MILF. I left that film thinking how absolutely stunning she was physically. I left this film thinking how absolutely stunning she was as an actress period. It’s not that she does anything special, rather she plays the role about as perfectly as one could imagine. The film’s villain, Captain Vidal, played by Sergi Lopez is acted equally well.



The man epitomizes evil. There are no redeeming qualities to his character which make his comeuppance oh so satisfying.
The film exists in a Manichaean universe. Good is good. Evil is evil. Morality is painted in broad strokes; there is no gray. Some may lament del Toro’s lack of subtlety, but this is a fairytale (an adult fairytale, but a fairytale nonetheless) and that is consistent with the universe that all fairytales inhabit.

People will walk away from this film and say "it's not a kid's film" or "it's not really a fairytale," because the film is rather dark. I'd argue that before the 'Disneyfication' of our children's stories, most fairytales were dark. If you've ever read the original Brother's Grimm stories, they weren't very cheery. They were cautionary tales: Hansel and Gretel end up as meat streudels. Pan's Labyrinth harkens back to those types of stories.



The film’s visual look is a character unto itself. Everything is soaked in blues and de-saturated browns. The movies palette is comprised of elements: water, earth, wood and blood. A handful of spectacular phantasmagoric creatures populate Ofelia's fanstasy world, the best of which is Pan himself. Pan the faun is a haunting creature made of earth, wood, horn and flesh; it's a version of the creature I'd never experienced before. The below creature is also well designed, but even it is not as montrous as del Toro's fascist Captain Vidal creation. You can tell he's really evil because he polishes his boots until they're real nice and shiny.



What keeps bringing me back to the film is the question of whether or not Ofelia's fantasy world is 'real' or not. No other character in the film experiences it which is not unusual in films of this nature. However, what usually does happen is that there is some evidence that exists to suggest that the fantastic things experienced by one character are not solely the creation of his or her own imagination. You know the parents find some artifact of the fantasy world which in turn acts as a wink and nod to the audience to suggest, 'hey, this really DID happen'. Nothing like that exists in Pan's Labyrinth which leaves the ending completely up to your own interpretation. For instance, the below scene parallels a 'real world' scene that happens earlier making the below scene rife with symbolism. It further confuses whether these things are actually happening to Ofelia.

The film then becomes a sort of litmus test for the viewer. It can conclude happily or tragically. Margaret Atwood in talking about the book, The Life of Pi, talks about this same thing. The character in that book, Pi, the sole survivor of shipwreck that takes away his family that had set sail from India with their circus in tow, is being de-briefed in Brazil (I think)by a couple of Japanese insurance agents (don't ask, just read the book). The insurance agents conclude that Pi's story could be interpreted two ways: one fantastic, the other not so much. Pi in turn asks them which one they like better and they both agree that they like the former. He bursts into tears and thanks them. Pan's Labyrinth works much the same way, but it leaves it up to the viewer to choose which one they believe more strongly in. Either way, the movie is quite moving.



Upon a third (!) viewing of the film, I realized something interesting: it could work completely as a silent film. The movie is in Spanish, but if you didn’t speak Mexican (as The Shrub would say), you’d understand almost everything that happens on screen. That is the work of a great visual storyteller. More kudos to del Toro.

Guillermo del Toro has now become for me a 'must-see' director along the lines of Scorcese, Mann, Nolan, Linklater, Lee, the Coen Brothers and of course McG.