Pan's Labyrinth

Hey where's everbody else on this blog?

Just saw my favourite film of the festival so far. Once again back at the Elgin for the screening of Guillermo del Torro's latest film. I saw his film "The Devil's Backbone" at the festival five years ago and also enjoyed 2004's "Hellboy" Del Toro also directed Cronos, Mimic and Blade II so this needless to say is a man who knows how to make you squirm in your comfy Elgin seat and he even warned us of such prior to the screening of the film. He also mentioned that when last at the festival with "The Devil's Backbone" it screened on September 9, 2001 and a day later he was in Los Angeles and we all know what happened the day after that. He mentioned this as a backdrop to some of the themes in his latest film given the rather chaotic state certain parts of the world currently find themselves in.

This film billed in some parts as a fairytale for adults is set in 1944 Spain as the Facists under Franco fight to hold off disparate groups of resistance fighters mounting a losing battle against superior numbers. Sergi Lopez, as Captain Vidal head off the facist stronghold in a countryside setting never identified, plays one of the most cruelly vicious characters I've seen in a film and not in a comic book style manner a la the Nazi pursuer in "Raiders of the Lost Ark". Anyone who has seen Lopez's turns as Harry in 2000's "With a Friend Like Harry" or as the creep of a hotel boss in 2002's "Dirty Pretty Things" already knows how sinister this guy can be in a film.

The two other main leads in the film are Ivana Baquero as 10 year old? Ofelia, the vicious captain's newly adopted daughter, and Maribel Verdu (from Y Tu Mama Tambien) as Mercedes who works in the household employ of the captain but is also the sister of the leader of the local resistance fighters.

There are two storylines here one concerning the Captain's pursuit, and in his words, complete elimination of all those who would resist the new "clean" Spain and the other concerns Ofelia's perhaps imagined journey into the nearby labryinth and the 3 tasks assigned to her by the titular Faun that will see her reclaim her rightful position as princess in her father's long since vanished kingdom.

As hard as it may be to imagine these two intertwined tales work magically together. The terror of the war going on around her is reflected in the equally frightening world that Ofelia finds herself locked in as she attempts to carry out the faun's instructions. Del Toro does horror with a storyline as well as anyone right now and your attention is fixed right to the finish.

I'm not sure I learned much about the Facist reign in Spain (unlike Loach's film already blogged upon here) but it is hardly necessary in understanding Del Toro's themes of lost innocence, the cruelty of battle on all sides and the ultimate foolishness of pride.

Would have loved to write more but have a 9pm screening of "The Last King of Scotland" that I must dash off to.