Pan's Labyrinth
3 ratings since posting on Monday, February 19, 2007
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in Everywhere
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Overall Rating based on 3 ratings |
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A timeless masterpiece. Really, the very proof of the marvel, the wisdom and the power in this wonderfully-told story is that every single person watching it sees a whole different tale. Lovely and intense! - Awen , posted 03/12/07 |
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Unsu...
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I am not sure what Del Toro meant when he wrote this screenplay. But.... my first impession was that I was observing the Christ struggle, retold with a feminist twist. Ala Rebecca Ann Parker. (www.sksm.edu/faculty/rebecca_parker.php) The narrative parts drew on scriptural imagery for sure. No doubt about that. "Father's Kingdom" is repeated a few times. "Seated next to the Father" at least once. Pan tells Ofelia "Your Father not of this world." This theme goes on and on..... Heck, the Faery King/ Father even looks like the Catholic Father God that Del Toro (and I) were raised with. In so many ways. But there are some striking, and liberative differences in the tale. Which is why I say it could pass as feminist revision. First off, it is a daughter that goes to the human realm. She is not sent by her father. Absolutely not. She quite deliberately wanders out of the kingdom when she is not being observed. Ofelia is not slaughtered as an "innocent." In fact, she actually redeems herself and opens the vortex between the worlds by refusing to spill the blood of an innocent baby. That, she is later told, was the "final test." It wins her the right to sit at her Father's side. I really liked it! Because I see the value in the Dionysian death and resurrection tale of Christ. But I cannot accept that a "an all loving and all powerful" God would send an "innocent lamb" to be slaughtered. No way. No how. That is illogical, and a dangerous telling of an important myth. I agree with Parker on this fact. The Christ story has served, for too long, as the justification for abuse of innocents. Del Toro turns that version of the Dionysian tale on it's ear. Ofelia leaves her "Father's Kingdom" as she reaches the age of reason. She does this on her own volition. Later, she returns home by her own choice to protect an innocent. It could be the story of any human being, really. We die and return home. It is not by the slaughter of the innocent that we have this chance. It is by our own hand, and our own "good acts." Yes! There is resurrection tale I can live with! Looking back on the movie, as I watched it a second time, I saw the psychological drama of a child living in a terrible situation. Ofelia could be seen as simply using her mind to escape. (It seems that is what Terry Gross saw.www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php) But, I think that interpretation is a somewhat shallow one. It shortshrifts the mythologic implications, which go far deeper than that. Pan's Labyrinth shows us the worst of the human condition. And how we might still redeem ourselves *without* justifying the slaughter of innocents. Wow! I would put it on the level of the allegorical "Wicked" (book, not play) as a modern myth that really tells us something about the human condition in the 21st century. See it! - Unsubscribed , posted 02/19/07 |
Pan's Labyrinth was recommended for:
- Tribe: Bunnies, snakes and bitches
