Pan's Labyrinth

[Alex]

Watched it today. Liked it quite a bit, though it was a little bit reserved to completely latch onto my psyche.

I though del Toro made one minor misstep at the end but otherwise no significant quibbles.

Spoiler:

At the end, when Vidal comes to take away back his son from Ofelia in the labyrinth, he sees (and we see with him) Ofelia simply talking to herself. I would have preferred that she finished her conversation with the faun, it left, and then Vidal showed up.

The reality of the fairy tale is still ambiguous but doing it the way he did tipped it a bit more in the direction of unreal than I'd have preferred.

I also don't like the translation of the movie's title from The Labyrinth of the Faun to Pan's Labyrinth. Pan is a specific Greek god (whose Roman name was Faunus) but so far as I could tell, the faun in the movie was not meant to be the Pan of Greek mythology.

One other comment that occured to me but doesn't really have anything to do with the movie itself. The response to Apocalypto overwhelmingly focused on how violent it was, and psychoanalyzation of Mel Gibson because of it. While there may have been more of it, I think the violence in this is just as brutal and unflinching but other than mentioning whether it is appropriate for children I haven't seen any comment on it.

[Gemini Cricket]

Spoiler:

I think it was intentional that her father didn't see the faun. I think it was all in her mind. It's sad, but I think that was intentional. Shrug.

[Alex]

Spoiler:

That is certainly a reading of it, but I don't think it was Guillermo del Toro's intent to settle the question. He has been talking a lot lately about film not needing to lay everything out for you, that it is good to be presented with a story and then you go away thinking it out on your own what happened, what it means.

But I have only been catching side conversations since I was avoiding specific spoilers. So if he was trying to answer the question he didn't go quite far enough and I'd prefer ambiguity because it makes it more interesting.

Ambiguity still exists, I just feel like del Toro was "taking sides." And of course, if anybody gets to take a side, it is him, but I don't want him to.

[Gemini Cricket]

Spoiler:

I hear ya. I'm not a big fan of films leaving it all up to you. Was it a dream, was it real, etc. I think a filmmaker needs to spell it out. Leaving it up to the audience means many different interpretations, many ways of looking at something. I like it to be clear cut, I like to see the director make a choice. I think he could have gone deeper into it, too. But I'm okay with that scene.