Friday, January 12, 2007 , Updated
Movie review: Pan’s Labyrinth
Guillermo del Toro's unflinching eye
There's a great story about how director Guillermo del Toro left his satchel full of notes, drawings, storyboards and scenic ideas about the Pan's Labyrinth project in the back of a cab, and didn't realize it until he was long gone. The materials represented years of work, and if the cab driver hadn't salvaged the satchel and returned it, the whole project might have bitten the dust.
And that would have been a shame, because Pan's Labyrinth is loaded with wisdom, imagination, weirdness, fable and truth - in short, it's a lot like the incredibly interesting life we might dream of leading, but never actually want to lead - because it's also incredibly cruel and brutal, and absolutely demanding of self-sacrifice.
From the initial sequence where Ofelia leaves the Rolls to walk through the wild forest, weaving her way through airborne motes past bending ferns, marveling at ancient rune-carved stones, we are transported to a borderland on the fringes of reality. And since Ofelia is young enough (and, given her circumstances, desperate enough) to prefer fable to reality, we accompany her on a series of forays beyond the borderland into a world both magical and limned with malignancy.
Del Toro, who wrote as well as directed, seems to have a morbid fascination with (among other things) clicking, clacking clockwork devices: witness the infernal eternal life-giving mechanism from Cronos and the ticking courtyard bomb in El Espinazo del Diablo (The Devil's Backbone) - which, incidentally, also centered on the Spanish Civil War, though at an earlier stage of the conflict. So fond is he of staccato cracking noises that even his mythical creatures habitually emit them: both the insectoid "fairies" and the malevolent Pan creak and clack for all they're worth whenever they move around the screen. But to give this odd predilection its due, del Toro may have tapped into something elemental to our limbic core with this stuff, because (personally, at least) whenever I hear these sounds emitted from the various creatures, I'm creeped out on what I believe to be a subconscious level. (Though of course I can't be sure, since I'm conscious as I think about it and write - regardless of what you might argue in terms of this rambling observation, which I will now bring to its well-deserved and long-overdue conclusion.)
Oh, just one more thing: the captain has a pocket watch with a cracked case which he disassembles and meticulously cleans, swabbing its gears, etc. Don't tell me I'm imagining this whole clockwork obsession thing.
There's little doubt that del Toro is one of the great artists at work in cinema today, and here I refer not to artistry in the sense of overall workmanship (though this may also apply) but rather in the sense that what he frames in the viewfinder is so damn beautiful. His set pieces and moving tableaux are painterly, sumptuous, rich in detail and lit as if by Rembrandt's own candle master. So even when a setup (such as the aforementioned watch-tinkering episode) elapses after only a moment of actual screen time, it lingers in our mental view as we attempt to appreciate its composition and intricacy. This is what makes del Toro's frequent unflinching visions of ugliness and cruelty all the more jarring, because they are set within the framework of his beautifully crafted worlds.
And cruelty abounds in this tale of right vs. not-right, where the forces of right (Captain Vidal and his fascist regiment) act with that certainty of purpose which defines true evil. Vidal's deadly moral code allows for no shades of gray; it is binary: on-off, left-right, yes-no, right-wrong. It is a construct, and an arbitrary one, dependent for legitimacy on its author - and, of course, on force of arms.
Like all encroachment of foreign forces into indigenous populations, the experience of Captain Vidal is that the violence he inflicts breeds violence in return, of a measure and quality to match or exceed that which originally prevailed. For instance, there is widespread application of the coup de grace among Vidal's men following skirmishes with rebel guerrillas, and by the end of the film the rebels themselves are employing this brutal practice.
Sergi Lopez (as Captain Vidal) reminds one of a slimmer, younger, more upright version of Anthony LaPaglia, and he convinces as a character whose cruelty knows no bounds. As he prepares to deliver a parting shot to a wounded rebel soldier, the poor doomed fellow raises his hand time after time to push the pistol's barrel away; finally, tiring of the game, Vidal backs off slightly and shoots him through the blocking hand.
Will Vidal's brutal deeds be visited back upon him, in true morality play fashion? I'm not telling, but I will say it appears his housekeeper, Mercedes, takes inspiration from the Black Dahlia killer. (O.K., so I am sort of telling.)
Ivana Baquero (as Ofelia) brings innocence and a sense of wonder to the story; her performance demonstrates the naivety of youth, as she greets creatures her elders might assume to be sinister with cautious curiosity more than fear.
The other standout is player is Maribel Vergu as Mercedes; while Ofelia's real mom malingers in bed through a difficult pregnancy, Mercedes takes over her role of protector and adviser. Simultaneously she acts as a pipeline for information and supplies to the rebel fighters - a position that puts her in great personal danger.
The back story of the plutonian fantasy kingdom populated by fauns and fairies and deformed child-eating cannibals exists almost as a foil to the mundane hammer-upside-the-jaw reality of wartime existence - demonstrating that worldly evil has it all over the imaginary conjurings of even the most twisted seers.
WISEST COMMENTARY: "Things out here aren't too good." - Ofelia's whispered words to her womb-bound little brother.
TELLING IT LIKE IT IS: "To obey, just like that, for the sake of obeying - without questioning - is something only people like you can do, Captain." - Dr. Ferreiro to Captain Vidal
IT'S ALWAYS SOMETHING / MURPHY'S LAW: "Damn, we catch one and he turns out to be a stutterer." - Captain Vidal, referring to an about-to-be-tortured-for-information rebel captive.
REVIEWER'S BEST ADVICE: Don't eat the grapes. (Don't even think about it. . .)
