Pan's Labrynth (El Laberinto Del Fauno)

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 13 Jun 2007 15:54

Wow, there's a lot of films you should avoid. In fact almost all films have stuff going on out of frame that we understand based on general principles explained elsewhere in the film.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 13 Jun 2007 18:36

Switch Kicker wrote:It would make me feel better... This is actually starting to bother me now. How... how the fuck does she get out of that room? I hate not understanding something. Even if it holds no value to the plot of the story.

You should just stick to watching big budget American films then, because you'll have problems with everything else.

Does it also bother you how the girl's mum is the queen at the end, which clearly contradicts the fantasy of the story?

Switch Kicker · Post by **Switch Kicker** » 13 Jun 2007 18:38

dyalander wrote:Wow, there's a lot of films you should avoid. In fact almost all films have stuff going on out of frame that we understand based on general principles explained elsewhere in the film.

But this isn't explained elsewhere in the film. I mean, come on. How does Anikan Skywalker move things without touching them? The force. How does the "One Ring" form fit to the bearer's finger? It's a magic ring that can do many magical things. How does the little girl get out of the locked room that's guarded by men 4 times her size when the magic she's seeing is fake? Blank...

ashleyd · Post by **ashleyd** » 13 Jun 2007 18:39

because the magic isnt fake

Switch Kicker · Post by **Switch Kicker** » 13 Jun 2007 18:47

ashleyd wrote:because the magic isnt fake

That's what I say... But these... people, tell me different.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 14 Jun 2007 03:39

Are you mental?

Do you really not understand what Ashley is saying, and the difference between those movies?

Dave Da · Post by **Dave Da** » 14 Jun 2007 05:21

I'm glad I got out of this argument a while ago. The ending as I previously stated about 2 or 3 weeks ago shoots down any possibility that there is eve a remote possibility that the fantasy is real. FANTASY is a keyword that everyone keeps using.

Fantasy fan-tuh-see, - noun, plural -sies, verb, -sied, -syÂ·ing.
1. imagination, esp. when extravagant and unrestrained.
2. Psychology. an imagined or conjured up sequence fulfilling a psychological need; daydream.
3.a supposition based on no solid foundation; visionary idea; illusion: dreams of Utopias and similar fantasies.

The film is a fantasy by definition there are going ambiguity in fantasy. Obviously she has a psychological need to fulfill so she creates her fantasy world to cope with the hardships of the war. Regardless of there being a lack of hard evidence to support how she got out of the dead end is pretty much arbitrary to the purpose of the movie.

At the beginning of the movie she sees that big ass bug thing. We saw it clearly as a bug (since we see things as she does) she saw it as a bug. She still told her mother she saw a fairy. Obviously that was her imagination calling it a fairy. This shows that right off the get go everything from there on will be in her imagination.

Muffinman · Post by **Muffinman** » 14 Jun 2007 12:37

Bickering takes all the magic away from this movie

You make the big faun cry

Dave Da · Post by **Dave Da** » 14 Jun 2007 17:11

Erik Chan wrote:Bickering takes all the magic away from this movie
You make the big faun cry

agreed

dyalander · Post by **dyalander** » 14 Jun 2007 20:27

How does the little girl get out of the locked room that's guarded by men 4 times her size when the magic she's seeing is fake?

You say it like its an impossible task. It's not. And any leap of faith required to answer it is always going to be smaller than the leap of faith required to explain why the General cannot see the Faun, or why the film repeatedly implies that the fantasy is just that. MOreover these other things happen after the scene in question which is important given the way the narrative works - what happens later re-orients the viewer with respect to what happens earlier.
Maybe she sneaks behind them while they stand in a circle smoking cigarettes, or they all go and take on more pressing tasks given that by this stage they are under attack (have they been attacked yet - I'm just going from the memory of a single viewing). These are far more likely possibilities with resect to the content of the film than the notion that despite all the clear indications that the fantasy is not real, it actually is. They are built on things going on elsewhere in the film - ie. the incoming attack, the nature of most guards found in films and the girl's own ingenuity shown throughout the film.
The film is not supposed to work like Star Wars or Lord of the Rings - instead it involves you in the fantasy only to reveal it to be just that - it comments on the reality of the Spanish civil war and its effect, as well as on the nature of experience, through its effect on the characters, particularly the girl, and specifically through the gap between what is actually going on and what she experiences. In Star Wars the whole point is the fantasy - if it makes any comment on the reality of the viewer it is simply by offering that fantasy as metaphor for the viewers reality. Pan's Labyrinth works by attempting to break that metaphor down, and speak more directly to real events and involve the viewer in the narrative in a very different way. The harsh relaity of the film (the violence for example) is supposed to be rendered all the more real because it is thrown into relief by the fantasy of the girl. In Star Wars our suspension of disbelief is a given as we watch the entire film it depicts only a fantasy, in Pan's Labyrinth the suspension of disbelief is interrogated by the film it depicts a fantsay within a reality - in the end it is focused on the girl's perceptions, and the surrounding realities are supposed to appear to be all the more real. In Star Wars the perceptionsof the characters are fully in line with the reality that surrounds them - in Pan's Labyrith the whole point is that thisis not the case.
You seem like you don't want to work back and reconsider what happened you want to read all as one reality like Star Wars - but it's not. It seems to me that you think a good film would show the gap between the two realities more clearly with respect to each instance. The film doesn''t work like that - it lets you belive in the fantasy before finally demanding that you see it for what it is at the end - sort of like the twist in The Usual Suspects but with a key difference. I think this represents a better analogy than Star Wars or Lord of the Rings for explaining why you are unsatisfied by Pan's Lab. (If you haven't seen The Usual Suspect don't read on and go and see it first then come back and tell me I how right I am) No doubt you like Usual Suspects more or at least consider it more coherent - because it goes back and does all the work for you showing you what might have actually happened as opposed to what we originally saw happening. Because you expect the film to do it all for you, you are too willing to take what is shown at face value, as if it is the reality of the film rather than the reality of the girl framed within the reality of the film. The power of the Usual Suspects is that all along we are left blind to the gap between what we see and what actually happens, the power of Pan's Lab comes from the fact that we are alwasy supposed to wonder about the reality of what is happening even as we submit ourselves to it. If The Usaul Suspects ended only with the revelation that the story has been concoted in part from reality and in part from stuff in the room without going back and showing flashes of what might have actually have happened - that wouldn't mean it had to be like it was originally presented just because you might not be able to imagine how it actually went down. The revelation would still make it clear that whatever happened, it wasn't what we originally saw. Secret Window is another one of these movies that presents a reality then redifines it as unique perception rather than what actually happened. It also goes back and walks you through the redefinition process. Pan's Lab doesn't walk you through it but that doesn't mean it presents the fantasy as real.
Pan's Labyrinth doesn't do the work for you, it assumes you're intelligent enough to do it yourself. If you don't think it would possible for the girl to get out of the room unless the chalk was magic the entire film falls down for you and fails to get any coherent point across - intsead it becomes a mish mash of stuff. That's your failure not the film's.

QuantumBalance · Post by **QuantumBalance** » 04 Jul 2007 22:59

What it really comes down to is this must be an amazing movie. Because, it really seperates the believers from the non believers. For a movie to cause this much debate, it must be well done

SlashC · Post by **SlashC** » 04 Jul 2007 23:19

Has anyone who has seen pan's labyrinth read "Life of Pi"?

Eskimo Joe · Post by **Eskimo Joe** » 05 Jul 2007 10:33

I have read Life of Pi, but have yet to watch the movie. Are there similarities? The book was pretty good, and I loved the algae island that purified salt water. Not to mention all the muircat things.

Jeremy · Post by **Jeremy** » 05 Jul 2007 17:01

SlashC wrote:Has anyone who has seen pan's labyrinth read "Life of Pi"?

Great comparison.

Almost the exact same story, although war is probably more powerful than being stuck on a raft.

My brothers fiancÃ© spoiled the ending of Life of Pi for me, apparently not on purpose, but because she didn't understand the ending. Angryface.

pips · Post by **pips** » 15 Feb 2008 22:05

Wow. That movie was brutal. I was not expecting so much gory. I really had no idea what it was supposed to be about. Considering the other movie, I thought it was just going to be a fun, mazey, adventurous movie. It was good though. Poor girl. But not.