Monday, 6 October 2014

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

El laberinto del fauno (or in boring old English: Pan's Labyrinth) is a 2006 dark fantasy film directed by Guillermo del Toro. Pan's Labyrinth may be the coolest film in existence, and has made me curse my inability to understand Spanish every day.

The film is set in Spain, 1944, after the Spanish Civil War, centring around the main character Ofelia, an abandoned labyrinth and a mysterious faun creature. The narrative of the film interweaves seamlessly with the fairy tale of the Princess Moanna of the Underworld, who died and her father is said to have believed that her spirit would one day return. Meanwhile in 1944, Ofelia meets her step father Vidal, a frighteningly cold Falange officer, with her pregnant mother. Ofelia is one of those typical protagonists, whose curiosity gets the better of them, but holy moly, things go so wrong. Upon meeting the faun, Ofelia is given three tasks to complete before the full moon in order to become immortal as the faun believes she is Princess Moanna. The most terrifying scene in the entire film is Ofelia's encounter with the Pale Man. But not even the part when the Pale Man eats the fairies. The moment he wakes up you will pee your freaking pants.



The thing that will bring you to happy tears in this film is that the Animatronics and CGI is absolutely incredible, holding up very well and sometimes stronger in comparison to other films that have been made more recently. Pan's Labyrinth is everything a director could ever hope for their movie to be and an absolute must-see for any mere mortal that wishes to be whisked off into a world of mystical horror.

No comments:

Post a Comment