lolaraincoat (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
lolaraincoat) wrote2007-02-15 10:57 pm
lolaraincoat) wrote2007-02-15 10:57 pm
Three notes on structure and influence in Pan's Labyrinth
First note: Pan's Labyrinth upends every other story of the Spanish Civil War I've ever seen/heard/read by beginning after the war is over, and yet being a war story, and a war story in which the good guys win. It might be that the only way to make a hopeful story about the Spanish War is to start after Franco's victory -- after all, it was all downhill for him from there, right? A very, very slow downhill, but still.
Second note: Pan's Labyrinth upends every Disney fairytale movie by having a dead father be the condition from which the story flows, rather than the dead mother. Furthermore it puts the death of the mother at the end rather than the beginning of the story. So, like My Neighbor Totoro (which in some senses it mirrors, darkly) it turns the classic Disney narrative inside-out -- though to much different effect.
Third note: There's not much Mexican commentary on Spain that I can think of, in film or elsewhere, but of course there's tons of Spanish film and other art about Mexico. It might be worth watching it again just to see how it's related to Luis Buñuel's Mexican films ... hey, I wonder if the amputated leg and the icky eyeball monster are conscious homages to Buñuel? Is the milk in this movie connected to the milk in Los Olvidados?
So to sum up: you have to see it, it's just as good as everyone said it is, but wow, painful, ouchy, wow wow wow.
Second note: Pan's Labyrinth upends every Disney fairytale movie by having a dead father be the condition from which the story flows, rather than the dead mother. Furthermore it puts the death of the mother at the end rather than the beginning of the story. So, like My Neighbor Totoro (which in some senses it mirrors, darkly) it turns the classic Disney narrative inside-out -- though to much different effect.
Third note: There's not much Mexican commentary on Spain that I can think of, in film or elsewhere, but of course there's tons of Spanish film and other art about Mexico. It might be worth watching it again just to see how it's related to Luis Buñuel's Mexican films ... hey, I wonder if the amputated leg and the icky eyeball monster are conscious homages to Buñuel? Is the milk in this movie connected to the milk in Los Olvidados?
So to sum up: you have to see it, it's just as good as everyone said it is, but wow, painful, ouchy, wow wow wow.
no subject
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Well, yeah, but the movie isn't set in 1939 -- it's set in 1944. We're seeing the post-war mopping-up, and it ends in a victory (however partial and temporary) for the forces of good. So in that sense, it's Hemingway played backwards.
And that's right, eyeball monster is Un Chien Andalou. But I never see scenes of milking cows and then drinking fresh milk without thinking of Los Olvidados, too. That's probably just me, though.
I went and looked up some of the reviews just now, and you're right -- something about the movie inspired unusual stupidity in reviewers who are not generally so dopey. Huh.