Fawning Over The Faun

Pan’s Labyrinth (the Spanish title actually means “The Labyrinth of the Faun”) is actually not an easy movie to sit through. It’s rightfully called a fairy tale for grown-ups because even the happily-ever-after ending is soaked in melancholy, loss and—spoiler alert!—blood.

The setting is post civil war Spain in 1944, and a young girl and her mother arrive at a country house where she meets her new stepfather, a cruel fascist general who’s waging war on the rebels in the countryside. What follows next are two parallel stories, one in a war-torn world of barbaric generals and desperate rebels, and the other in a magical underworld filled with fantastic and fearsome creatures. In both worlds pain and sacrifice abound, as well as love and acts of kindness and beauty. The movie works on several levels, and the great thing about it is that both worlds are as compelling and as disturbing as the other.

While watching it I realized I was drifting in and out of the movie, that there were moments when I was aware that I was watching a movie. Usually for me it’s a disturbing sign, that the movie did not successfully grab my attention and hold it. But I realized I was unconsciously stepping back from it. I think I was afraid to get too sucked into it and be more disturbed and saddened. Partly it’s also because the shifts between worlds were, at times, not as fluid and effortless.

Still, minor quibbles to a major achievement by Mexican director Guillermo del Toro. Watch it now before it disappears from the movie houses.
“Sabi na, watch it nga eh!”