Must See Movies: Pan`s Labyrinth

Pan`s labyrinth (2006)

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Genre: Drama / Fantasy

Cast: Ivana Baquero (Ofelia), Sergi López (Capitán Vidal), Maribel Verdú (Mercedes) and Doug Jones (Pan, Pale man).


Before this year`s Oscar ceremony I hadn`t heard anything about Pan`s labyrinth (El Laberinto del Fauno, actual Spanish title) but when I started to see that during the first half an hour of the show it had already won three golden statues, I said to myself that it had to be one hell of a movie. It took me a long time but finally I managed to get it about 2 month ago and let me tell you guys that the wait was worth it. The movie is a piece of work, a tremendous story and a marvelous cinematography made this movie one of the best of last year.

Pan`s labyrinth amazes you with its brilliant combination and superposition of Franco`s dictatorship in the 40`s and Ofelia`s fantasy world. It is like seeing two movies at once. I must warn you though that it is a quiet raw movie, some scenes can really give you the creeps, like at the beginning of the movie when Captain Vidal violently hits a peasant in the face. But this kind of violence is not unnecessary, it is within context and makes the movie more realistic even when we`re talking about a fantasy genre movie.

One of the greatest achievements of the movie is the portrait of the underworld and its beautiful story about its lost princess. The whole underworld monarchy and the pan story are captivating and they haunt you in ways that you never thought a movie could. The Oscars for make up and wardrobe are well deserved because they make a terrific job with the pan and the pale man (the pale man scene is freakin`awesome).

I honestly don`t know where a man can get such an imagination to pull off a movie like this one. But who is this man? He is the Mexican director and writer Guillermo Del Toro, the same dude who directed El Espinazo Del Diablo, Hellboy and Blade II. He belongs to the same generation of Hispanic directors such as Alfonso Cuarón (Children of man, Y tu mama tambien) and Alejandro González Iñarritu (Babel, 21 grams).

Pan`s labyrinth won`t make you a better person or give you a moral lesson, it`s just a fairy tale about how life is and how we want it to be. It is an incredible sample of how brilliant movies have to be made.

Note: try not to eat when seeing the movie.

Note 2: if you don`t know what a “pan” is, don`t ask me… cause I still can`t figure it out.

Note 3: I don`t know what else I can write here… I’m just trying to complete the one page that is required for the newsletter. Cya.