I read too much SF (or perhaps talk to James Nicoll too much), since large chunks of Pan's Labyrinth struck me as the story of people making choices against their own interests far too often. I don't insist that every character in a story be a totally focused success-drone, but I also prefer that they're also not always confused and self-destructive -- in this, as in so many things, there's a middle path that is often neglected.(It's also one of those movies that is generally understood as fantasy, but could also be a purely realistic story featuring the extensive hallucinations of one character. It becomes even less happy, if you can imagine that, under the latter interpretation.)
I didn't see this under ideal circumstances; my DVD player has been dying by degrees this week (probably due to the dust in the basement here), and it gave up completely last night at about 1:02:33 into a 1:52 movie. So I saw the rest of it this morning. I do not recommend watching this movie in two sittings, if you have the option not to.
Note: I wrote the above the day after I saw Pan's Labyrinth, about two weeks ago. I'm afraid I don't remember much more about it. It's visually stunning and the performances seem quite good (as far as I can tell without actually knowing more than three words of Spanish), but there did seem to be a bit less "there" than I expected there to be. I guess I finally think that's it's more "worthy" than "good."
No comments:
Post a Comment